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In Perspective, Fun: Log unrolled (lichen planus?)

M

Martin Evans

New member
Another experiment, using photo-stitching techniques intended for panorama, to show a perimeter in two dimensions.

logunrolled2c.jpg

The subject is a firewood log, found in the wood-stack, with some green and grey lichens growing on the bark. I had to spray it lightly with water to bring out the colour properly.

I positioned the log on a gramophone turntable, carefully centering it and setting it vertical (as far as possible). The image is combined from about 15 cropped vertical slices, photographed with a Pentax K-x on a simple setting: zoom at 50mm, Av, f/8, ISO 400, manual flash from the camera's own flashgun. Camera on a tripod with delay set to 2 sec (this locks up mirror and disables anti-shake in the K-x). The turntable was rotated 22.5 degrees between each shot. I have just installed PhotoShop Elements 7, and used this to merge about 15 of the images ("repositioned mode") and do just a little colour correcting and final cropping. I tried bounce flash from a Vivitar 283 earlier, but the direct flash gave better, crisper, colouring and outlining of the lichen in this case.

Martin
 
K

Ken Tanaka

pro member
I salute your clever technique for skinning the log, Martin! There are probably many interesting possibilities for such a technique.

Honestly, though, this particular image is not interesting to me. In my opinion your rendering of the surface is not insightful or catching. Too much green cast, too much brown, too flat, no conceptual oomph. I wonder if you're being too slavish to attempting to document the bark? If I'd not read your backgrounder I would have imagined that you simply took a photo of a tree trunk.

I encourage you to delve into this further and to abandon most of your allegiances to fidelity in favor of using the technique to create unique images of naturally occurring textures and patterns.
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
As a raw material for new derived art, perhaps?

logunrolled2c.jpg

Martin,

The strip is enjoyable but the pleasure is not self sustaining over a long time for revisiting, at least in its present form. As a composition, for example, there's a circular formation of lichen that is chopped off at the lower end and that's a pity.

Still, we're immediately impressed by the industrious project of "unwinding" things. Actually this has commercial value, in your area, perhaps, if there's an antique dealer who needs to catalog vases, urns, parchments and such. I was asked by a prestigious store nearby but was not setup to do a good job. You'd need a good turntable and also some huge ones and clamps etc to pull this off.

As Ken points out the great thing hear is nature itself, the form of the tree limb and the lichen. He has expressed those aspects of the project well.

My thoughts are in an entirely new area. This however requires that you are open to exploring the use of the material you have acquired as simply raw stuff with which to build artfully. If you feel that this is trespassing on your concepts in photography and picture making then the subject is, of course, mute. I have no such restraints and collect textures to manipulate. I like to discover forms hidden in nature.

Asher
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Martin,

Photography is not just for art or even commerce. It's also a tool for seeing. Quite often I have attached a small camera on a stick and photographed parts of a broken drive shaft and obtained the names of motors, part numbers and so forth. Too often, we think of photography as being just for "fun", "memories" or "art" or some project to be shown or published somehow.

Let me revisit this from another standpoint. We do not need to evoke and esthetics here. The object does not need to be beautiful, impressive or even inspiring. Here, for example, the goal is limited to being able to assemble a representation of the entire surface of the branch.

Just the unwinding of a surface allows us to view entire patterns, where otherwise we are forced to see fragments only from any position. So the technical achievement is in itself worthwhile. Still, I'd prefer to use a more robust system.

So it's a job well done. I personally love such textures with built in intriguing shapes. I collect them whenever I can - just from my own photography and use them for my artwork. I know that's not your intent but give them to your good wife or son and they'll have a blast.

Asher
 
T

Tom Robbins

Member
This is a very interesting idea Martin, and I hope you continue to explore its possibilities. Logs of birch and others with various surface textures and patterns come to mind, and it could be a great opportunity for experiments with lighting.
 
M

Martin Evans

New member
Many thanks to you all who have commented, including the PMs. As I stated at the heading to my image, this was an experiment. I just wanted to see how the idea would develop, using much the same technique that I experimented with earlier, using a cylindrical pottery jar and an irregularly shaped vase. Those details are shown at:

http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/mhe1000/musphoto/periphoto.htm

There are other ways of imaging the surface of a three-dimensional object. This way only works technically well with something close to a cylinder (see my earlier test on the vase, in the above web-page). It may be useful in the hard-headed world of engineering, and it may give an idea to others with more artistic gifts than I have.

Incidentally, it was also an experiment in the sense that I was trying out a new camera! My dear wife has bought me an entry-level dSLR (Pentax K-x) for Christmas, and she is kindly letting me play with it early. Great fun.

Best wishes to you all, artists, technologists, and just camera-buffs.

Martin
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Martin Evans said:
Incidentally, it was also an experiment in the sense that I was trying out a new camera! My dear wife has bought me an entry-level dSLR (Pentax K-x) for Christmas, and she is kindly letting me play with it early. Great fun.

Best wishes to you all, artists, technologists, and just camera-buffs.

Martin
Click to expand...

Well Martin,

The truth is we have a motley crew around the OPF table! Wander around the neighborhood with that Pentax, (if you can pry it from your good wife's hands), and snap what really engages you. Post the best of these and likely it will get us too! Making verticals right may necessitate simple adjusting in Photoshop, (Edit-transform:perspective, skew or warp). How every minute or large, if it makes you stop and fascinates you, then it's a possibility. If she makes you gasp for breath and your heart flips upside down, for sure snap away.

If something is interesting to unravel, then show us the best too!

Asher
 
C

Chris Kettle

New member
Martin Evans said:
Another experiment, using photo-stitching techniques intended for panorama, to show a perimeter in two dimensions.

The subject is a firewood log, found in the wood-stack, with some green and grey lichens growing on the bark. I had to spray it lightly with water to bring out the colour properly.

I positioned the log on a gramophone turntable, carefully centering it and setting it vertical (as far as possible). The image is combined from about 15 cropped vertical slices, photographed with a Pentax K-x on a simple setting: zoom at 50mm, Av, f/8, ISO 400, manual flash from the camera's own flashgun. Camera on a tripod with delay set to 2 sec (this locks up mirror and disables anti-shake in the K-x). The turntable was rotated 22.5 degrees between each shot. I have just installed PhotoShop Elements 7, and used this to merge about 15 of the images ("repositioned mode") and do just a little colour correcting and final cropping. I tried bounce flash from a Vivitar 283 earlier, but the direct flash gave better, crisper, colouring and outlining of the lichen in this case.

Martin​
Click to expand...



Martin,

Pretty cool really concept, regardless of what people thought of the actual subject.
Obviously you needed to use the flash on the camera as it would be pretty hard to get even lighting from all sides of the log.​
 
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