the scannography blog

That is the project Mitos tries to put together.

Trying to create a book about scannography is what we all want to see happen.
Here is an opportunity to see this happen: Mitos, in Santa Maria, California, is tryng to found the energy, money and good wills to create it. So this is an appeal to everyone interested.
Just go to this link and read how this works and how you can join in.

I hope Mitos will find the people and the help she needs.

One more info for this week. First thanks to everyone who gave me some news. Thomas sent me 3 new images. I think they are exceptionnal. I can't show them here : they would be too much reduced. So please take a look at them here, it's worth the click and much more.

PhotoshopUser is THE Photoshop "HowTo" magazine. The september 2010 issue contains 8 pages about scannography.


I'm very glad that Linda Zacks, Clare Nicholas and myself were invited to talk about our way of using a scanner. Here is how this featured pages are presented : "How many of you out there have a scanner sitting on your desk? (That’s exactly what we thought.) So when’s the last time you used that scanner? Well, if you’re anything like the following three artists, then you answered, “I’m using it right now.’’ A lot of people will tell you that scanners are for digitizing photographs and slides, but that’s only partof the story. Scanners have the capability to capture just about everything around you — one man’s trash could be that one element that’s missing from your next assignment. Throw in some paint, sandpaper, crayons, paper and other art supplies, and you’ll be creating unique and awe-inspiring illustrations and designs in no time."
Clare Nicholas talks more of flat objects that can be used in a recomposed image, Linda Zacks scanns about everything and reuses these elements in her creations. I explain how I compose my own images. PhotoshopUser is a great magazine that gives lots of tips and tricks, it is only available for members of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP).
If you go to the website of the NAPP, you can even ask for a free issue…

Here is the message I received from Chad :

''I'm Included in a group show at a great photo gallery out in LA , opening next Thursday the 9th at 6pm. Sadly I will be unable to attend due to a very bad case of poverty. But please attend and give me some buzzy-ness, bring friends or even enemies. Its new work ( 3 large pieces and 15 portfolio prints to browse) Ive been doing with "scanography" and old paper documents. Best Chad''

Stephen Cohen Gallery 7358 Beverly Boulevard • Los Angeles CA 90036

Gallery hours are: Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 am - 6:00 pm 323.937.5525 phone

Here are two of the pieces he exposes. I also join the transation of the Emily Dickinson letter, Chad sent me. Letter to Benjerman Kimball

"To take the hand of my friend's friend, even apparitionally, is a hallowed pleasure. I think you told me you weree his kinsman. I was only his friend-and yet cannot yet believe the "his part in all the pomp that fills the circut of the Southern Hills, is that his grave is green". His last words on his last note were" a caller comes". I infer it to be Eternity, as he never returned.

Yourtaask must be a fervent one- often one of pain.

end of page one

page 2

Oh Death, where is thy Chancellor? On my way to my sleep, last night, I paused at the Portrait. Had I not loved it, I had feared it, the face had such ascension.

Are even as thyself, For what are stars but asterisks, To point a human life?

Thank you for the nobleness, and for the earnest note- but all are friends, upon a spar.

Gratefully ,E. Dickenson

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.

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

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…

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.