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Our industry is filled with those whose intelligence and contributions forward technology and manufacturing processes across the supply chain.
Laurent Nicolet has been in the PCB industry since 1982, first as a PCB manufacturer and, more recently, on the supplier side as vice president of business units electronics at the SCHMID Group Worldwide, now living in Taiwan. Laurent has particular expertise in PCB etching, materials, and machinery. He focuses on new technologies and recently introduced the new embedded traces process developed per SCHMID. He is also a skilled photographer with a unique eye for beauty. Laurent has agreed to share his story and photos with our readers.
For more than 30 years, I have loved taking pictures, but I was like a tourist taking pictures. Approximately 10 years ago, my daughter needed to create a picture of water dripping from the faucet for a school project. She asked me to help her, and when we got close to the faucet, drops came out. I tried to take pictures of those last drops as they came out of the faucet. Fascinated by the photo effects of droplets, I made myself into a “drop generator,” focusing on a single drop of water and other types of “liquids” in my photographs.
As time passed, my curiosity expanded. I stopped taking “tourist pictures.” I set my camera on manual mode, which sparked an idea, prompting me to invest in a “professional” drop generator. My skill as a photographer and the scope of my work grew but, for me, my photographs were still missing the complete sequence of a drop. I decided to invest in a high-speed camera to make, in essence, a slow-motion movie. (For those who understand photography, I am able to capture up to 21,000 fps.)
In terms of my chosen profession in PCBs, this new tool also allowed me to study what happens when a drop hits the surface of a printed circuit board, like during the etching process. This has given me a lot of ideas, which have now been implemented into some of our machines.
Eventually, I began to apply my photography knowledge to landscape photography, particularly sunrises and sunsets, because the different light at those times of the day creates something wonderful. Today, I have brought on more special equipment and expanded my landscape photography to create beautiful panorama pictures.
We are featuring just a few of Laurent’s amazing photos. To see more of Laurent’s work, including some of his artwork featuring more drops of liquid, please click here.
