My friend Graham Saxby, who has died aged 89, was an expert in holography who showed amateurs and professional scientists alike how to create the holograms that we encounter daily in the form of security printing on credit cards and banknotes, on packaging materials and on CD and magazine covers. His manual, Practical Holography, first published in 1988 and in three editions over 15 years, remains the standard work on the subject. He also wrote articles on a wide range of topics. His other publications included The Focal Guide to Slides and The Science of Imaging.
I first met Graham when he came to visit The Hologram Place, the first specialist gallery for holography in Europe, which I helped to establish in 1978. When the Royal Photographic Society Holography Group was formed in 1984, he became its newsletter editor and I was elected treasurer. As a result we saw each other regularly for the next 30 years.
Graham was born in Redcar, Yorkshire, the son of Eleanor, known as Cora, and Flinton Saxby, a bank clerk. The family soon moved to Devon. On leaving school, Graham read physics and maths at Exeter University and joined the RAF, where for seven years he was OC Photographic Science Flight at the Joint School of Photography at RAF Cosford, near Wolverhampton.
He later became a member of staff at what is now Wolverhampton University, teaching educational technology to trainee teachers, and, later, modern optics to degree courses in applied sciences. He built a holography laboratory there and taught courses to both arts and science students.
His ability to communicate and his enthusiasm for holography made him the perfect advocate for the medium and he was known for his kindness and sense of humour. Despite his many other interests, he remained true to holography, acting as editor of the Royal Photographic Society holography group newsletter for more than 30 years.
Many remember his generosity as a teacher and he is considered instrumental in the formation of the Royal College of Art holography unit, where he was a visiting lecturer for 10 years.
Graham married Christine (nee Smalley), a librarian, in 1953 and became stepfather to her daughter Anne. Among his extracurricular passions we could list photography and music, swimming marathons for charity, and playing bridge to a high standard. He was a collector of cacti and a lover of cats, images of whom he used to illustrate his beautiful technical drawings.
Graham and Christine were ballroom-dancing champions and he once cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats. His home-made wine was notoriously potent, but its consumption seemed to have no effect on his prodigious memory. He was a member of Mensa and, in his 80s, pursued an advanced mathematics course with the Open University, for whom he had worked as an invigilator for many years.
In 1998 Graham endowed the Royal Photographic Society Saxby award for achievement in the field of three-dimensional imaging, in appreciation of the benefits of 50 years’ membership of the society.
He is survived by Anne.
