Photo-Artists who want guidance on scanning flowers and other
three-dimensional objects using a (preferably Epson Perfection/Expression)
flatbed scanner normally used for digitizing film, photographs and documents
can attend my classes at digitalartacademy.com
There are over 100 "scanographers" devoted to this emerging medium but there
is only a handful of published books and articles about the subject. Many of
the artists are conventional photographers, but many are pursuing fine art
scanning exclusively. Although this is a medium that appears to be initially
"easy" to accomplish, soon challenges arise and then one gets ambitious. Many
of the artists have admitted to an "obsession" with scanning, in particular-
flowers (myself included!). But then as soon as I saw my first murky scan I
recognised the creative potential. I had no idea that other artists
had independently "discovered" that a scanner is actually a very high rez
digital camera. It was years before I realized that there was
another artist, right in my own backyard (okay, 20 minutes down I-95 to be
exact) doing exactly the same thing! Not only that, our artistic approach and
our specimens were so similar that it gave the both of us chills! Because some
guy keeps messing with the Wikipedia "Scanography" entry that I started several
years ago, Christian and I have started this blog by and for photoartists who
are actively pursuing this medium or interested in learning more about it.
About Scanner Photography:
The flatbed scanner was developed by Ray Kurzweil.
To the best of my knowledge the first artist(s) to use the procedure for
scanning three-dimensional objects as a work of art appears to be Keith
Smith/Sonia Sheridan. (MoMA exhibit April 1974.)
Technically, scanner photography has more in common with
large-format camera photography than it has with Xerox copy images. Many
scanographers had experimented with "Xerox" and color copier object collage
images until the color photo scanner/computer became affordable in the 1990s
(myself included). The method of arranging objects face-down on the platen
"feels" exactly the same and the resulting image is a 1:1
capture...but the "negative" is equal to a reproducable digital image file.
If you want a copy of "The List" (of photoartists involved in this medium)
send me an e-mail request.
