scanning.
Most of my photographer friends who still use film cite the happy accident as their primary reason for doing so. It’s a nicely romantic idea, and can help photographers create pleasantly random results. But as film seems to have begun its descent into “historical process,” it’s nice to see that artists are finding new and innovative ways to harness the power of the happy accident using digital technology. I’m not talking about mimicking film, even though those techniques have a certain following, and can be pretty fun (the Poladroid freeware in particular.) I’m referring to works that use only the scanner to create the image, like the ones I recently saw on my friend Leanne’s blog and photostream.
shoreline, by Leanne Eisen
Judging by the images on her blog, Leanne has been doing extensive experimenting with different techniques in scannography. Most of them have the feeling of abstract digital paintings or line drawings on black, but some, like the image above, almost have the look of the half-developed sheets of photographic paper that I used to scavenge from the darkroom wastebaskets because I thought they were so lovely.
But nostalgia for materials aside, these are seriously intriguing images. Some have an almost-scientific quality to them that turns me off a little, or at least doesn’t grab me in the same heart-pulling way that the soft, dreamy ones do. Even so, the mass of lines reminds me about how scanners actually pick up information from objects, flat surfaces, negatives, and the like. The tangles make me think that Leanne’s tricking the technology, forcing it to bend to her artistic will, and in the process, the software revolts and goes haywire. This could be part of the appeal for me—or it could be the fascination of not really knowing quite how the images are made.
More of Leanne Eisen’s work can be found on her website: www.leanneeisen.com
