the scannography blog

Jaime Ruas is a spanish graphic designer and painter.
His use of the scanner is very special as he paints directly on it. He scans his painting after he has create them on the scanner glass. I don't know if this can still be called "scannography" but I find this approach really interesting. You can discover them on our main site
I'm sure the purists (yes, we have already purists amongst us in this new medium) will say that's not scannography because it's not a capture of objects, but maybe the approach can give us all ideas (in fact Liz Atkin already used paintings in her portraits). But sometimes he seems to introduce elements like tissus (see the second example hereunder), so… I hope jaime will write us a step-by-step of his method. That would be helpful for us all to discover new ways…

Here are some recent news from Josie :
"The pumpkins have been carved, the seeds roasted, we are deep into November and starting to think about sweet potatoes and cranberries.  A recent meander through the conceptually and materially impeccable sculptures of Martin Puryear at SFMOMA was as peaceful and awe striking as my wander on the beach a couple of days later. Thousands of sand dollars sat whole at the tides edge, their five-fold etched petaloids staring up from the sand.  Form, in both instances, at a wondrous apex.  A few events are coming up to celebrate the books, and to provide a sneak preview of the next project: a book of beach treasure. I look forward to seeing many of you.   Saturday, December 6 10am - 6pm:    Kitchen Table Studio's Holiday Fair    St.Teresa's, 19th & Connecticut,  Potrero Hill, SF.  A fun, seasonal and neighborly group of artists selling their wares and sharing sumptuous snacks.  I will be selling all four books and will have prints for sale.  Please stop by. Heart Stones makes a great stocking stuffer and bring one of the other books to every holiday party! Wednesday, December 10, 12:30 pm:  California Academy of Sciences Talk and book signing with Sandy Carlson and scientists from the museum. Come celebrate the Seashells collaboration with the Academy at the new location in Golden Gate Park.  Forthcoming information will be up on their site. Visuals Unlimited, a stock photo agency specializing in science, has many of the images from my books. Please let any textbook editors or magazine photo directors know. Their new website will be up in December."
You can find more informations on Josie's own site.

Deniz Kurt is student in Art. He is living in Turkey and does paintings in a very expressiv style, mixing portrait s with calligraphy and very strong colors. He discovered scannography a few months ago. He likes the dark, expressive and emotıonal side of it.

Here are some examples of his use of scanner :





As soon as Deniz will have a website where you can discover his work I will let you all know about it

Patri Feher just reviewed the list of Master Directory of Scanography.

I added the list to download on the scannography site (on the left of the page, under the buttons). It is a very complete list of artists Patri has compiled through the years. Not only has she searched for most artists using this technic but she also listed Flick'r groups, forums, tutorials and more…

So if you searched for infos about scannography, this is a must-have !!

The new artist on our site, John Greschak, has a very particular approach to scannography.
For him this is a technique to approach the invisible. Here is a part of his explanation from his own site :
When I look at close-up scans that I have taken of glass marbles, I see beings. Some are human-like; others are not. Sometimes they are alone. In other cases, they are in groups within a scene like one would see in a photograph. Occasionally, I see isolated inanimate objects as well (e.g. a bottle or an automobile). Some beings and scenes appear to be from the past; others are futuristic. These beings and objects are of various sizes. Usually, they are overlapping and transparent. Images that I have cropped from these scans admit different interpretations, like an optical illusion. They can be extremely complex. I enjoy looking at these images. I find them to be very interesting; fascinating.

These things that I see within images of glass marbles are inconspicuous, especially under normal viewing conditions. In order to see them more clearly, I use special techniques. My primary objective in writing this article is to describe my methods so you might derive as much pleasure from these images as I do. At the same time, I would like to provide detailed information for investigators who seek to explain the nature of the phenomenon considered here.

I let everyone judge his visions and Art. For my part I just see here a complete and coherent universe. It's not each image alone that is interesting, it's the whole concept that has to be taken in consideration. Nothing to do with what John sees (or thinks he sees) in his glass marble, you believe it or not (I don't, this is, for me, like the Rorschach's tests : everyone sees in them what he needs or wants to see), but you can't stay untouched by the coherence and strange strength that comes out of the whole.

I hope this very special artist will make you react and leave some comments here…

The second artist of september is named Al Gabor, a development research analyst.

His passion for gardening and photography has lead him to scannography. This seems to be a very common way amongst us, scannographers ! Al Gabor plays with colors and forms but also with humor and sensuality !
A classic scannographer but his images are beautiful and a pleasure for the eyes ! You can discover more of these on his own site.


Gladiolas


Veggie portrait

Janet Dwyer has won some important prices (In 2007 the world’s most prestigious photography competition, the Pilsner Urquell International Photography Awards). Her attention to details and moods gives strenght to her images as well as a kind of poetry not missing some humor ! She doesnt hesitate to add other elements to the flowers and compose them so our imagination can play and see much more then the flowers she has scanned…
Take a look at the main site as well as on her own site.


flying dream


tango

Thanks to Scot Alexander, the scannography page on Wikipedia looks great now !

Finally we arrive on a consistent page. This is an encyclopedical article, well structured, with references, and keeping a minimum external links. Scot Alexander rewrote the whole article based on Patri's first researches and thanks to her help in searching bibliographical sources. Scot Alexander added a lot of elements and enriched the whole.



The only thing missing now, in my opinion, are some good examples of images.
To add such images, they have to be added in Wikipedia's Creative Commons. That means that you allow anybody to use this image you uploaded there, without having to pay any rights to you. You remain the author but allow the image to be reused in any possible manner. So if some amongst you are ready to do so, I think that would help improve the article. Scot added one of my images I gave out there. I'm now working on a french translation of Scot's article…

Is floral the main theme amongst scannographers ?

It won't be Tim Fleming who would say the opposite. Tim's beautiful arrangements can now be seen on the scannography main site.


April in Paris


Fading Rose

Tim is an artist, teacher, web designer and photographer specializing in images of the American West, as well as a scannographer. His work is well known in and around the Northern California area, and he has exhibited his artwork both nationally and internationally. You can see his work on his personal website.