the scannography blog

Taking pictures of the outside world with a simple scanner can seem to be a strange idea. Thomas W McDonnell got from the idea to its realisation. With incredible results

So here we are in face of the first landscapes taken directly with a scanner. I except here Jeff Mihalyo's work, who has been the only one, on our site, realizing pictures with a real depth of field.
Thomas has taken out his scanner to capture real life, moving it around while it processes, putting it on his car while driving, scanning conversations with people. The result is really amazing, opening once more new fields for scannography.

Once again I hope you will all see his page. His work is really impressive. There is not much more to add, the pictures speak for themselves. From a personal point of view, I just want to say that I find lot of feelings in these images, a kind of sense of story-telling, a humanity that is often missing in scannographers works.
His large images have obliged me to create a special second page for him. A feature we can, maybe replace in the future. The images on the blog are less impressive so please click to see his larger works and you can also visit his Flick'r gallery.



And leave comments please (it takes a few seconds to write down just a few words : do it !!! It's a pleasure for me and for the artists concerned…)

It seems scannography doesn't make it to bigger medias.
And if it does it is considered as strange photographic technic. I have this feeling that this is essentially due to what we are. I mean we mostly (the big part of us scannographers) are working at home, taking pictures of little things from our near environment. We don't take pictures from things that concern the others. So why should they be interested ? Photography is different, you show things to people that concerns them, so they look at a kind of mirror of themselves.
We only propose a look at what WE are.
In a certain way scannography is much more an artistic way of working then photography is…

So, if we want our works to be seen, we have, I think, to stick together, try to push things together… Give us your feelings about this, write some comments, share ideas… Long live scannography!

A young french girl, student in Visual Arts and History of Art in Angers is using a scanner to create images and projects of her own. Elisabeth produces two types of scannographies. You can now see her images on our main site, but also on this page.

The first are portraits in black and white where she tries to put emotions and to capture a kind of innerworld of the subject… The lights, contrasts and composition are superb in these images and she succeeds by transmitting emotions and characteres of the persons she scanns…



The second type of scannographies are abstracts. Elisabeth paints abstract color compositions, then scanns them while moving them on the scanner screen-plate. She obtains images with lots of movements and waves. She uses them in projections while a dancer follows his inspiration guided by these scannnographic movements… A very interesting experiment.

I hope you will like this new artist. Don't hesitate to give her some feedback by commenting these images.

Yes I know, flowers, flowers, when it comes to scannography it always comes to flowers.

But Roberta Bailey (she has her own website here), brings the subject to a new level. At least to my eyes. She plays with colors, transparencies, and lights without crashing the simplicity of the elements she presents. Her creations are just perfect. The essence of her body of work seems to be beauty, something that gets more and more lost in Contemporary Art. That's maybe why we are not looked at as artists, but as some bunch of amateurs playing with scanners !!!
Go and see these images (on scannography.org) , I think you'll be amazed too (especially if you like flowers as much as Modern Art, which I personnaly do, being open minded is important these times).
I hope she will touch a large public and so help scannography get it's way forward.

J. Seeley's work has been added on our site.
These are incredible images, with perfect harmonies of colors, compositions and forms… I advice everyone to take a look at them, this is technically perfect and has a very special and very own mood in it. A whole complete and personal universe…

Liz Atkin, one of our great scannographers, is participating on a Dance show… She will be exhibiting art work for Independant Dance at Siobhan Davies Studios in London on 18 and 19 April with other dance artists
From what I saw from Liz's work, this must be an interesting venue. I recommend it for those of you who are close from London…


For those who want more infos, take a look here. You will have to search a bit, but It's worth it I think…

A german scannographer joined our community…

Jens Standke is experimenting lots of different ways of creating images. One of those ways is scannography. But, as for all his other artistic researches, he doesn't go the common path. As he explains "I examine the relationship of time, movement, reflections and visual perception. "
His scannogaphies are essentially a play of movement and light and the result is some strange forms, like ghosts that suddenly become very real and consistant. With a usual camera capturing light effects is something that is completely blurred. With the scanner, on the opposite, you have sharpness on each moment the light is captured. So these are unusual images and, the more, really appealing to the eyes.
Movement, light, reflection is the basis of this serie, but Jens also did some portraits that you can discover on his page on "scannography.org"

Sergey Sorokin is a diverse artist touching all kind of medias.

His scannographys are abstract and geometrical. Far from the standards we slowly create by being a community of artists. But that's also what makes him interesting. He uses the scanner in a non-conventional way. Colorfull, presenting very repetitive motives, using often printed papers as ground material for his images, he doesn't fit completely in what we now call scannography.
Sergey takes the scanner lens out of the scanner and rambles it on the objects or things he want to interpretate. This approach is very new, I think, and certainly allows a lot of new images to appear. My regret is he stayed a bit too classic in what he showed. I suppose he will try out lots of things in the next future (why not body parts, screens, animals…). For those who are ready to try this technic I'm sure this will open new areas of creation. So, thank you Sergey, for presenting us these images and a good continuation to you.

Marty Klein presents some of his works on our main site.

Marty is, in a way, a newcomer to scannography. But he is a longtime lover of Nature. Photographer of wildlife and flowers since always, he passed to scannography in 2006, discovering the richness of details and subtilities of this technic. He now shares the result with all of us. Playing with textures, matters and sharpness to bring us to view the details of what surrounds us.





Go also see Marty's main site, rich of images of all styles