Saturday, January 10, 2009

The Increasing Popularity of Scanography

Yellow Weed

A few years ago when I began scanning subjects directly on my flatbed scanner I wasn't sure what to call the process. Ever willing to conduct some research, I searched the internet to find what others were calling the technique. I figured I couldn't be the only one having so much fun. But when I first began my search I had a difficult time finding other examples. I did eventually come across a few folks who were working with the medium in similar ways and called the process "scanography." I'm not crazy about the name… it sounds medical to me. But the name seems to have stuck and there appears to be a growing interest in the process. Now when you google "scanography" a whole slew of sites come up. Here are a few that I find informative:

http://www.scanner-magic.com/index.html

http://www.scannography.org/

http://www.shows2go.si.edu/exhibitions/2007/12/scanner-photogr.html

http://blog.scannography.info/

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Scanography has been around in many forms since the 90's, as far as I can recall. I first began experimenting with it by placing small dried flowers between acetate and feeding them into my Nikon LS 2000 dedicated 35mm scanner in 1998. Another photographer friend suggested I try a flatbed scanner which she had done around the same time. Finally bought one several years ago and began trying out the process. The biggest problem with scanography is the unflattering light source of the scanner which is common in most scanography. A knowledge of Photoshop can move images from that cold, clinical feel to something more expressive with experience and creativity. You can view some samples of my work with scanography here:

www.snelsonphoto.com

Cheers, Stewart

essam mahdy said...

what a wonderful photos i found in your page really great work ....
u rock

christian said...

Thanks for giving a link to my site. It's hard work getting people together to give more weight to this unique technic…
Chris