He was born in Portland on Aug. 15, 1929, son of Alton Clifford Bayer and Marguerite Willard Bayer. He grew up in Portland with his parents and younger sister Margery, attending Portland schools and graduating from Deering High School in 1947.
He received a B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Maine in 1951 and an M.S. in Industrial Statistics from the University of Rochester in 1960.
He left Maine to begin a career with Eastman Kodak Co. that lasted 35 years, from 1951 to 1986. While at Kodak, he became a senior research associate and a member of Kodak’s Scientific Committee. After retirement he moved to Brunswick.
Bryce is best known for his work in digital imaging. The “Bayer Filter,” a color filter array patented by Kodak in 1976, is almost universally used in digital cameras, video cameras and camera phones. People around the world benefit from his invention on a daily basis; he has been called the “father of digital imaging.” In 2009, Great Britain’s Royal Photographic Society awarded him its Progress Medal. In 2012 he was the first recipient of a Camera Origination and Imaging Medal presented by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.
During his first year in Rochester, N.Y., he met his future wife, Joan Fitzgerald, who was also employed by Kodak. They married in 1954 in North Andover, Mass., and at the time of his death had been married for 58 years. Their three children, Dave, Doug and Janet, enjoyed having a father with such warmth, wit and energy.
Bryce loved athletic activities, from tennis to hiking, cross-country skiing to boating, bicycling to mountain climbing. He enjoyed taking his family on camping trips, from the Florida Keys to the wilderness of Alaska, and every province of Canada. He was especially fond of Acadia National Park, Jekyll Island, Ga., and the Adirondack Mountains, where for many years he owned a camp. After their children were grown, he and his wife went on many Elderhostel trips in this country and abroad. Two of their favorite trips were to Norway and New Zealand.
Bryce loved taking photographs. His lifelong interest in computing began with his father’s business machines and early room-sized computers. Another of his favorite pastimes was to strum his tenor ukulele while singing his favorite old songs. This brought great joy to his children and grandchildren. The rare performance before a larger group at times “brought down the house.”
Bryce was predeceased by his parents. He is survived by his wife, Joan Fitzgerald Bayer, of Brunswick; their children, David Allen Bayer and his wife, Laurie Mitsanas of Concord, Calif., Douglas Edward Bayer and his wife, Marty Gold of Ithaca, N.Y., and Janet Elizabeth Bayer and her partner, Arl Nadel of Berkeley, Calif.; grandchildren, Anastasia Mitsanas, Nicole Bayer and Rory Bayer- Nadel; his sister, Margery Bayer Parks of Scarborough; sisters-in-law Constance Fitzgerald Driscoll and Justine Fitzgerald Juarez; 10 nieces and nephews; and numerous cousins, grandnieces and grandnephews.
A memorial service and celebration of Bryce’s life will be held during the summer of 2013.
Memorial donations may be made to the Building Fund of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Brunswick, P.O. Box 129, Brunswick, ME 04011. The former U.U. Church was destroyed by fire in June 2011.
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