Scanography

First, from the 'whatever catches my eye' file, is this news story.
I definitely feel sorry for this guy, but I can't help but laugh about the means of his demise.
If I were an editor, I would have titled this story "Be careful where you point that thing!"

Wash. man electrocuted by urinating on power line
Monday, March 1, 2010
(03-01) 12:53 PST Montesano, Wash. (AP) --
Authorities believe a Washington man was killed by accidentally urinating on a downed power line after a car crash.
Grays Harbor County sheriff's Deputy Dave Pimentel said Monday 50-year-old Roy Messenger was not seriously hurt after he collided with a power pole Friday and called a relative to pull his car from a ditch.
However, family members found Messenger electrocuted when they arrived.
Pimentel says Messenger apparently urinated into a roadside ditch but didn't see the live wire. The urine stream likely served as a conductor, allowing the electricity to reach his body.
Pimentel says there will be an autopsy but *burn marks indicated the way the electricity traveled through Messenger's body*.

Yeeeow!! what an ugly way to go!

"Be careful where you point that thing!"

Now to the real topic, scanography.

You don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar to figure out what scanography is, even if you haven't heard the term -
it's simply using the scanner as a camera, of sorts.
Remember when copy machines became ubiquitous, and it was a hoot to drop your pants (or hike up your skirt, as the case may be), sit on the 'copy' area, and maybe send it anonymously to your boss, after writing 'Kiss my...!!' on the copy??
Well... times have changed, sort of.
(I must remind you - 'the more things change? the more they stay the same'.
Mark Twain wrote: "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.")

Now we have flatbed scanners, and you can put anything you damn well please on the glass, and make a 'scanograph'.
The depth of field is very short, everything goes pretty soft after an inch or so above the glass.
Of course thanks to photoshop, you can do most anything you want with that image.

For more on scanography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanography

Some people have made some great creative leaps with this:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/03/disposable-film-fest/
Short Shot on Flatbed Scanner Screens at Disposable Film Fest -
Devoted to the art of making movies without using movie cameras, the Disposable Film Festival found the perfect poster child in Memoirs of a Scanner. The short film came about when three University of Southern California-groomed filmmakers used an HP photo scanner to shoot 300 live-action scans that were then strung together with an audio track to tell a tale packed with alienation, sex and violence.

Me?... I'm not as creative in that way... but I have had some really good fun with a few scanographs of 'stuff' I've collected over the years, beach debris/detritus/etc. ... and then adding more to it.
That's what this image is about. I scanned 'a bunch of stuff', and then added some other digital photos, montage style.


For more, go to:
http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2010/Scanographs/index.html

And if you'd like to see more images done w/ "beach debris/detritus/etc.", bones, shells, etc...?
http://www.californiabeachtrip.com/
None of it is done w/ scanographs, but all of it deals w/ bones. shells, stuff found at the beach, all prints are 'darkroom', no digital here. I still have many of the items in storage boxes in my closet... but until I win the lottery, or someone gives me some hefty amount of cash to work with, which I highly doubt will happen, it's one of those projects that just won't get redone/updated with scanographs.

"Failure is an option, but fear is not."- James Cameron

This darkroom entry is about taking some chances, trying to do something that's hard to pull off, and nearly succeeding - the final print needed a little photoshop tweaking, I have to admit. But it was simply lightening a few areas - the composition wasn't altered.

But first, several items from the "whatever catches my eye.." file:
Dig this picture!


There's no photoshop here, folks! These crystals are as huge as they look!
Awesome!

http://news.discovery.com/earth/naica-big-pics.html
The Mega Crystals of Naica Mine: Big Pics

And also....... The famed Mavericks Surf competition was held recently, just south of SF, Ca.
All agreed these were record breaking waves:



Photos: Mavericks Surf Contest 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/g/a/2010/02/12/mavericks2010.DTL&o=
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle
I'm sure you can google this, if you want to see video - this page has 100+ stills, very well done.

OK, back to photography & darkroom.

Every once in a while I see something about another creative type, talking about their work, that mirrors how I feel and work, too.

'Avatar' creator: Failure's OK, fear isn't.
By Richard Galant, CNN
February 13, 2010 7:10 p.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/13/cameron.avatar.ocean/index.html?hpt=C2

Creative works involves taking risks and making a leap of faith, he says.

"Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own," he said.
"Don't put limitations on yourself.
Other people will do that for you...
"Failure has to be an option in art and exploration because it's a leap of faith.
In whatever you're doing, failure is an option, but fear is not."
( I like last three words the best: "...fear is not (an option)"



This one is an attempt to basically 'reverse something out' of a background - the petroglyphs being reversed out of the landscape/ background.
Which is only easy if the thing you want to reverse out is the same (negative) size as the image you want to reverse it out of (and 'sandwich' the two together).... AND there are no 'distracting' elements in either negative.
...it's not a perfect world (what a surprise!) and neither you or I will be that lucky!

The landscape itself is actually 2 images - the dividing line goes horizontally thru the center, with one rocky landscape below, and another with the clouds, above, which makes sandwiching just impossible, considering that I wanted to reverse out the petroglyphs from both the top and bottom exposures.
Sooo...I dodge back both top & bottom exposures with my 'below the enlarger lense' apparatus, and additionally dodged back the portion in the center where the 'glyphs were going to go.
If the print wasn't 100% there (maybe 90+%?) that's probably better than anyone reading this can do in a darkroom.

As usual, larger images, and a bit more yakety-yak at:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2010/SignsInShadows/index.html

There's a Photoshop file of my sketch, which (roughly speaking) shows the dodging & burning stuff, and you can download it.
There's also thumbnails of all the layers, if you don't have P'shop.

The next few posts? Digital! I actually got a bit inspired by some 'scano-graphs' I did a few years ago...