Action images Sailing

Pas de trois
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Flora and fauna Scanograms

Scanning the natural world

There is no end to the number of tools
that can be used to produce photographic images. From simple shoebox pinholes to the most advanced digital backs, beautiful images can be created from a varying degree of technology. One such piece of equipment that is being employed more and more is the simple home scanner. The act of placing an object on top of the scanner glass and producing a high-resolution scan can result in some exceptional imagery. Scanography is a flourishing genre of image-making, and one that is attracting more and more practitioners every day. Janet Dwyers surreal juxtapositions of natural objects take the idea of scanography to the next level. Her images are complex and alluring, featuring arrangements of objects such as flowers, birds nests and, in some cases, live insects. Janet has been teaching photography workshops and producing commissioned work for a number of years. It was through the need to archive her work that she came across scanography. A number of years ago I bought a scanner so I could scan my slides and prints, says Janet from her home in Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada. To make sure it worked, I placed my hand on top of the glass which seemed like as good an object as any and produced an image. When I began studying the resulting picture, I realised the resolution capabilities of the equipment. It was essentially a large micro-camera with an unbelievable capacity to read detail. The resolution capabilities of the scans were particularly impressive to Janet due to her extensive background working with large-format photography. I had been working with DSLRs since the end of the 90s and had never been taken with the quality, she explains. Theyve improved in leaps and bounds now, but back then they couldnt match the quality of large-format on any level. But when I started working with scanograms I was blown away and realised that it could be a great tool to work with in my own projects.

Photographer Janet Dwyer explains how she uses natural objects and a simple home scanner to produce her exciting and complex scanograms. She talks to Oliver Atwell
The aesTheTic
Scanography has an appeal all of its own. Pictures from Polaroids and Holga, for example, carry visual quirks that make them stand out from conventional images, and scanograms are no different. There are a number of little visual appeals of scanography, says Janet. One in particular is the nature of the light. The light has a wraparound quality to it. Its very different to lighting something with a single burst of flash. The object in your scanner is being lit from the front by a moving bar of light and that light seems to wrap itself around the object. Another particularly striking feature of scanography, and of Janets work in particular, is the depth of field. Her images appear to have a visual depth that surprises many on first viewing. Scanners are rather myopic, she says. They see sharpness on a very narrow plane of focus. They have very little depth of field. Its like working with a large-format, 8x10in camera with a wide-open aperture. The most youre going to get totally in focus is around 18in. Everything next to the glass is incredibly sharp, but as the object or objects move further away, you begin to lose sharpness quite rapidly. However, there is an element of illusion at work here, she continues. If you look at the images, it appears that a large majority of the objects are in focus when actually theyre not. They appear sharper than they really are. People ask me how I get so much depth and I have to point out that the things theyre looking at are quite soft its just that theyve been scanned at such a high resolution that, as soft as they are, they still have some incredible detail. Lastly, many of the images appear to feature objects that almost seem to be floating within the frame. This suspension in air is due to the placement of the objects on the glass of the scanner. Its like youre lying underneath a clear coffee table and youve placed some objects above your head, says
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Scanograms Flora and fauna

Flying Dream

Fruits of passion

Janet. As the objects are supported by clear glass and photographed from below, they appear to be floating in space. Its a very appealing and strange quality. One of the most surprising visual quirks that can sometimes appear in Janets images is a digital track, which can occur when an object is moved (or is itself moving) during the scanning process. The exposure time for a scan can vary, depending on how high the resolution of your image is going to be, she says. Some scans can take upwards of 20mins. The critters on your scanner have to be moving in tandem with the scanner bar at the exact moment it passes by. Its exciting because its visually tracking their shape and movement. If you look carefully at my image Orb Weavers (opposite page), you can see the spider-shaped colour fringes. I used to see these trails as a mistake, but now I really see them as an element that adds a mysterious quality and depth.

Silks road

aTTenTion To deTail

The process of creating Janets images appears simple on the surface, but actually demands careful attention to detail. I usually start by imagining the picture in my head, she explains. When I go out into the forest near where I live, ideas will come to me and Ill begin building up that picture in my mind. Once I have that idea and the objects I need, Ill go home, remove the lid from the scanner entirely and place the objects on top of the glass, beginning with what I want most in focus. Then Ill work backwards. If we take my image Refuge as an example (see above right), I laid down the frame of dried leaves first, then the central
34 www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 17 September 2011

flowers and then on top of that I gently placed the nest. An important factor in the final image is the background, which is something that Janet maintains is dictated by the subject. You generally find a lot of black backgrounds in scanography, she says. It gives the image a very dramatic quality. While I have used black before, I prefer using things such as handmade paper, flower petals and leaves or tiles. Its just a little more natural and complements the subjects better. It gives the image depth rather than having the subject floating against the black. With regard to the placement of the background, some items may be too heavy to lie on top of the arrangement of objects. There are occasions when I actually suspend the background, says Janet. It depends on what the material is. I

sometimes work with slate, for example. On those occasions I place some bricks either side of the scanner and prop the slate on top of those. Once everything is in place, deciding that you want to alter the composition can be tricky hence the importance of previsualisation. Its so important to know where you want everything to be, Janet continues. Once its down on your scanner it can be tricky rearranging things, although inevitably there are many occasions where you have to. Once I have the things on the glass, Ill preview the image at a low resolution 300ppi, for example which will give me a rough idea as to what the final image will look like. Thats a lot easier than doing a proper scan, which can take a long time and be a pain if it turns out to be wrong. Some occasions find Janet using additional lighting to give some of her objects a more textural quality or depth. Its not something that I always do, but additional lighting can sometimes help to bring out the character of an object, she says. Ill put various lights to the side what will actually be the top in the final image which creates a kind of window-light quality. I use all kinds of lights, anything from 50 watts to 500 watts depending on how bright I need it. They range from desk lamps to studio lamps. You have to be aware of how strong your light source is so you know how far to place it from your scanner. The stronger it is, the further away it should be. However, I will add that its not generally recommended by the manufacturer to shine lights into the scanners sensor. You should consult your scanners instruction manual for advice.
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Flora and fauna Scanograms

ALL PICTURES JANET DWYER

Refuge

objecTs

Janet sees her images as an attempt to communicate a narrative by juxtaposing different objects, which are quite often flowers. While the alluring structures and textures benefit from this high-resolution documentation, in Janets hands the flowers take on another dimension. I use a lot of flowers in my images, she says. When Im out searching for the ideal subject, I tend to look for particular qualities that mirror human characteristics. Theres a tactile and sensual quality to flowers. They can be arranged in the image to look almost as if they are gesturing to one another. You can create a whole narrative just by the way you manipulate the flowers and objects. There are also occasions when Janet finds herself almost confounding the viewer by
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Orb Weavers
janeT is especially proud of this image, called Orb Weavers. The spiders in the image are inside a small clump of web, she says. The flower in the image is only around 2in high, so that should give you an idea of how small they actually are. I found them outside my studio door one day and I knew that I had to scan them. I placed them on top of
the scanner glass and put the flower in the middle. As soon as the flower was in position, they started spinning their webs all over the stem and petals. The whole process took around an hour. When people first see the image from a distance, they assume that the yellow specks are pollen. Its only when they get closer that they realise theyre spiders around 300 of them!

17 September 2011 I www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Scanograms Flora and fauna

Desire

seemingly working with flowers that no one has ever seen before. I sometimes like to juxtapose flowers by taking two or three apart and piecing them all together to create a sort of hybrid flower, she explains. There have been times when someone has come up to me in a gallery and asked me what kind of flower is in a particular image. But then I have to tell them that the flower doesnt really exist and that its unique to my image. Another thing I like to do is peel back the layers of a flower. I like to reveal the inner workings of the head because thats the real essence of the flower. Its a structural part that has the most interest and detail, yet its the part you dont often see.

equipmenT and posT-processing

Janet uses three scanners the Epson Perfection 1640SU, V700 Photo and Perfection 2450 Photo models depending on how much resolution an image requires. Ill use the Epson Perfection V700 Photo, which is the more advanced model, if I want to scan something that is quite small but want it blown up quite large, such as my image of the orb weavers [on page 35], she says. Its capable of scanning up to 6400ppi, although Ive not yet had to go that high. The most Ive done is around 3200ppi. However, if youre going to start working with those kinds of sizes, you have to understand that the files can be pretty large. For example, a 4x5in area scanned at 3000ppi and 16-bit gives you a file of approximately1GB. Thats a lot of information to manage. Janets tasks in post-production find her colour correcting (particularly if she has been using additional lighting) as well as dodging and burning certain areas. When you first look at your scan youll notice that the objects closer to the glass are lighter than those that are a little further away. That contrast happens quite rapidly. Youll also find that white flowers tend to blow out so youll need to burn them down a little. Those same old-school darkroom principles apply. One element of post-processing that Janet finds herself engaging in time after time and one that she is keen to warn budding scanographers about is touching

Bees nest

You have to think of your scanner as a large macro camera. That means it picks up on every little detail and magnifies it
out the specs of dust that can often result from using natural objects. You have to think of your scanner as a large macro camera, she says. That means it picks up on every little detail and magnifies it, including every little speck of dust. Its inevitable that youll have to spend time getting rid of dust but, if you make sure that you shake out your objects before you place them on your scanner, you can at least minimise how much work you have in postproduction. Its a lesson that I wish Id known when I first started. of composition apply. Such basic principles as the rule of thirds and leading lines are still completely relevant. Janet also maintains that images should have a basis in an idea or theme. In my opinion, you should know exactly what it is youre trying to say in your image and previsualise how your image is going to look, she says. Theres a temptation to think that just because youre placing some objects on a scanner you will have a successful image. But just as owning a DSLR doesnt automatically make you a photographer, working with a scanner doesnt automatically make you a scanographer. Work with objects that move you, she concludes. It has to come from the heart. Look at the work of others and be inspired. Then youll start producing the results you want. There are a thousand of possibilities with scanography and theyre just waiting to be discovered. ap

same rules apply

Scanography is a process that everyone has access to. With many homes now owning a scanner, it means that creating scanned images is something that anyone can try. Its crucial to remember a couple of things, says Janet. Using a scanner is the same as using a camera the same rules

To see more of Janets images, visit www.photoscanography.com and www.janetdwyer.com

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