Scanning as an art form

"More leaves - black" Canon LIDE 20 [original scanned at 600 dpi]

I've been using my scanner in a very typical manner: scanning old pictures [with the film negatives I could no longer locate], documents that I need to email or just certificates and diplomas for digital archiving [also a nice way to present your porfolio, resume', etc.].

While reading a photography magazine I came across the art of scannography, scan art, scanner photography or, my preference, scanography. Above is an attempt to digitized pressed leaves found in books that I will be giving away.

This was achieved using a basic Canon model scanner: Canonscan LIDE 20. Unfortunately, this model isn't too good when it comes to 3D objects. Fortunately I have another Epson Perfection 3200 photo scanner, which is a more advance model which I have yet to try.

At scannography.org, the author best summed up this art form:

"Scannography is near from photography but also very different from it in many points. A few of them are the absence of perspective and of depth of field, the regularity of the light captured by thousands of captors. Some of these points are very different from one artist to the other. The material seem to have it's importance too.

One of the most interesting things about scannography is that it is a new way to see the things around us. It's not macro but can be! It's not drawing but has something similar to those documentary drawings done to capture the essence of plants or animals! It's not photography but it reproduces the reality with extraodinary precision!"

Aside from the scannography.org site, below are some other links I've found interesting in my Google "research"; if you haven't been impressed and converted with my experimental scanography, these sites will!

Mr Mark's scanography Flickr site, click here.

Dawn's Scanography PBase site, click here.

Scannography.org links, click here.

As Dawn put's it, this is a "poor man's large format [camera]. Enjoy!