Genealogy. Maybe.

Looking back at all the experiments I can easily trace most of my technical choices. Although I can never firmly pin why it is that I make these images. I have strived to avoid the question. If you look at it and something goes on for you, great. But for me more than anything it is just getting it done. These current multi-focal composites are a departure from this method of approaching my work. They are the following of a series of ideas surrounding photography to a conclusion within their own logic.

For me photographic images have fundamentally changed. We are all familiar with the transition to digital. Instead of a chemical process, photographic images are encoded samples taken from a sensor. Whiles there has been this fundamental shift in the mediums underlying working, by and large the use and conceptual development has continued in the paradigm of traditional photography. Welcoming digital for the technical enhancement it has brought but treating it much the same, with the core focus being on the 'image' as subject matter, a human computational outcome. It is hard to ignore this intuitive, taught method of interacting with images. 
It is so hard to explain the shift in feeling towards images in this sense. It is like sitting back and looking at the world pass by and realizing that most things are the sum function of a rule being abided by. Adherence to a rule enforces the rule. Thinking of an image as data, takes the image into a purely abstract space. But this is the habitat of the modern image. The real innovations in photography happen outside 'photography'. The software development, the opening of new domains of interaction. The treatment of an image as product of a given data-set in an ever growing dataverse. Projects like Joachim Sauter & Dirk Lüsebrink’s ‘Invisible Shapes of Things Past’ expose these potentials. But there are millions of examples from Scene Completion to Automated Facial Recognition. All leveraging computation over the data to create something that is more than a photographic image. At the moment the use of images in this manor is treated as a little novel but these data hybrids are only going to grow and further penetrate peoples use of the image.

Computation.

All of the images Im making rely heavily on post capture processing to turn them into what i want. These computational overheads add significantly to the time it takes to create an image but represent more than anything what Im trying to achieve. The current workflow runs something like this;

1. Convert the camera .raws into small .jpgs using the generic settings within Adobe Camera Raw.
2. Organize the images into their row, then layer. The row is all the images from one set of full movements in one axis. The layer is how many images to create on whole image in focus
3. Feed the layers into one of a few image stacking programs. This part can take some time. As each image can need a fair bit of optimization. save this output.
4. Feed these outputs into either Photoshop Photo-merge or Autopano Pro. If the images/data are decent then photoshop can stitch out a test image in a few hours but any major gaps or serious mall alignments lead to a massive increase in compute time.

Autopano offers the fastest most controllable output but responds really badly to images sets with missing images by warping the entire image. But when all the data is there, it produces great outputs. Photomerge is stupidly slow but seems to be able to ignore missing images. Mostly the missing images are a result of my lack luster capture process - this should/will improve greatly with the use of a scanning back. I also tried Realviz Stitcher,I used this extensively for early panoramic experiments where it performs brilliantly but when faced with images that cover a large planar field of view it fails. I’m not really sure why but in the face of autopano i gave up trying to optimize it.
This is the last test I intend to do with a DSLR as the capture unit. It highlights nearly every problem! The lack of any uniformity reveals the fact that it was created with small images over a long period of time. In this case when I started it was a rainy day and by the time I had finished it was sunny. This has been less pronounced in previous images as they have been shot in environments with mainly continuous lighting. Although most of this could be edited out, I feel that that is outside of this project. Most of the image is 'in focus' but there are chunks and gaps. These relate to the repeatability issue and are exacerbated by small movements in the camera (of all the things the floor bowed under the weight of the camera). The dark square effect is caused by the minimal amount of image available to overlap. This test also revealed an entirely new problem that only really occurs with stacked images. This problem arises from an optical effect. By 'shifting' the back standard of the 4x5 camera I move the sensor over the lens projection. At the extreme end of a movement there is more image being projected but the sensor cannot move anymore. In these situations I 'shift' the front standard to move the image over the sensor. In the case of early composites this has never manifested itself as a problem as the image has been at a single focal plane. But with the images being stacked, these slight changes become parallax errors that make it impossible to overlay multiple focused images accurately. This phenomena was greatly enhanced by the fact that what I was focusing on was very close. It might well be possible to get away with it in an image if the plane of focus is shallower. This will reduce the total number of images used to make a composite, unless I can find a way to extend the rear movement. I should have really known about this before it happened as it was a major problem in my early panoramics. That said, I really like this failure image. It embodies a lot of what im trying to say.
The software I have settled on to perform the image stacking is Helicon Focus. Although i have tested a few, this program offers a good range of possibilities in manipulating the image. Also it supports a batch render function (only under Windows, unfortunately). This use of the software really stretches the algorithms used to blend the layers of different focal planes, mainly as its all optimized for macro work. Obviously if all this testing works, i go back to the .raw's and give them a full workover and repeat the process with greater attention to the details.

One small step for me, One giant leap for my credit card

I can with some degree of certainty say that i have got a BetterLight 4000E in the pipeline. Its the lowest model scanning back from BetterLight and the version im getting shipped in is SCSI based. I cant wait. I had hoped to find something a bit more local, like a Phase One PowerPhase but they are nie on impossible to find. As with all things in hi-end imaging, its all dealers and pros. Its very hard to crack in and have a play. Unless your shooting some skinny model for a catalogue. Despite putting out requests to UK dealers only one had the decency to respond. The BetterLight back tops out at about 18 Mega pixels but the quality of those pixels will be awesome. With the colour data being derived from a single scan line in its own r,g and b colour. No Bayer interpolation is necessary to generate the colour image combined with the Dac working in 16bits. I can look forward to some very clean images. Of course my main need is to have a large effective sensor and the 4000E's scan area is a whopping 72mm x 96mm. Honestly i feel a bit uncomfortable with this back as all the images and all the discussion on forums surrounding then are geared towards either art reproduction or landscape. I really don't see myself in either. As usual i'll just ignore and carry on.

Image Stacking Composites - Tests

This is the first full scale test. Using rise, fall and shift as before to capture the greatest area possible of the lenses image circle. Combined with racking the focus to generate enough images to describe the entire field of view as 'in focus'. This test image is riddled with errors. Most of these errors are surmountable but require an further increase in tolerances of the current imaging process. Currently the source images for each composite are captured via a Canon 350d attached to a 4x5 studio camera with large range movements. Because of the area of the 350d sensor is so small a great number of individual exposures are required.
The sensor is effectively in the back of a box, the shutter-box. Because of this not all of the image circle (approx 301mm at f22 from 210mm lens) can be captured. Also due to the angle of the mirror for the viewfinder only a very small area of the total image circle can be seen and focused. This never effected the early images, as i used an angle finder to amplify the viewfinder and acquire focus. This point of focus would then be same across the entire set of images made via the movements. By introducing the need to change the focus to acquire enough information to make a all in-focus composite, many of these early limitations become major problems. The issue with not being able to use the viewfinder outside of a small image area makes it incredibly hard to find all the required focus points for the image stacking. I have found a few ways to circumvent this but non of them is as satisfactory as being able to use the viewfinder. As the camera is mounted about 80mm from the 4x5 insert its not possible to use the ground glass focus screen. The next major hurdle is repeatability.
With each whole image being constructed from upwards of 300 source images the margin for error is high. Each image must overlap approximately 25%. This leaves room to wriggle. But as soon as focus stacking is introduced the number of images skyrockets to anything upward of 650. Additionally the overlap needs to be even greater to offset the change in focal length caused by shifting the focus. This focal shift manifests itself in the focus stacked images having a soft edge often reducing the overlap below 15% and intern increases alignment errors. All of these errors can be seen in the test.
A live-view camera would allow for more accurate on the fly focusing but the best solution would be to use a medium format digital back. These have an adaptor that would allow the use of a magnify-able ground glass screen and also benefit from a large image sensor that would reduce the amount of total shot required.
Upon reflection i have decieded the best way to improve the image and get it nearer to my vision will be the use of a scanning back. This will increase the effective sensor size to 100mm x 80mm approx. As a scanning back will require being tethered to a laptop, instant review of the images will remove most of the aforementioned errors. An with potentially less than 30 images required, high tolerance repeatability will be easy.

Of course all of these errors and ideas pertain to a single vision of the images i want to create. Their are many other routes and experiments to be explored. Im particularly keen to explore some form of automation of the process. It not inconceivable to develop a system that manipulates the camera movements via stepper motors. I also have yet to try using any of the movements that manipulate the perspective and plane of focus of a recorded image. But all in good time.

Focus

Two experiments of the current direction im working. Their is much to be said about these bits and the ideas they pertain to. I will add these thoughts soon. Additions. The image of the street excites me because in my mind it's a kind of anti-photography photo. For me it's only the outcome of process to generate an image with unlimited depth of field. As such it has imaging errors as a result of process variables. Their are methods that no doubt will become mainstream technology that achieve this via more advance means and also generate images that are visually faultless. Specifically I'm thinking of Stanford's research into LightField cameras. Yet more perfect vernacular photography to come with the continuing democratization of imaging technology. In this sense the image is a bit academic, its primary reason for existence to stimulate some form of debate about images now. The awkward dichotomy being i have no interest in engaging with this discourse beyond what i create.

Not sure about the video. It makes visible the changes between the focus points. I would really want the whole image to be interactive, although I'm not sure how. The possibility to navigate the process. More to be added

One of the few images i have made lately. Using software to combine images shot at different focus points leading to images that are sharp at every-point. This was a small test made of 3 groups of 4 focus layer images, stitched together. Mainly a proof of concept for a super large scale creation. As soon as i get my Canon angle finder and Sinar wide bellow to alleviate the standards drifting under pressure of the normal bellows. Sometime soon i really want to up a video of me making one of these images with a small interview.

Printing. Capturing. Part One

These past few months have become a re-inquiry into photography for me. In school, when I started making photographs seriously, my primary impetus had grown from listening to the adults in my life lament about the magical time that was their youth. With this in mind I set about imaging everything and everyone I knew in the hope of solidifying some of this apparently fleeting time. Now years later with my archive of images and video I have mixed feelings as to my use of photography. The archive represents a highly unique and personal time but for a long time left me unsure of what good photography was.
My images were not littered with sexy girls and awesome parties like Wolgang Tillmans or Vice Magazine. The images also did little for me except put me in a nostalgic void. By the time my disbelief in photography had fully manifested I was stuck inside the academic machine, learning the peculiar position of photography within art and culture. Now images had to be made with a level of referentiality and to some extent be placable within an understood dialogue surrounding the medium. This was fine until it began to impede things getting done. Why could I not make a 4ft square image of a girl’s anus?

Well I could if I created an accompanying context that fitted the image into a discourse that could be understood by the educational institution I was in. So here I am many years later doing a similar thing. Working out where what I create fits. I find this process to be slow and cumbersome. It almost instantly decays the energy that comes with the desire to make something, unless you are making things that comfortably can be positioned into the explicit framework that your educators enforce. Its hard enough to objectify your own work let alone fighting the reverence that your educators have for there own predilections and knowledge. So I’m at the point where I only offer a cursory nod to their requirements.

Joachim Schmid:

I have liked this guy's works since i first saw some of his 'Photogenetic Drafts' series. These where composites of cut negatives from one studio in germany that he had combined top make a full but distorted portrait image. Other works like his 'Statics' have a conceptual link and are surprisingly similar in their visual outcome to my own work; The Statics where created from images left over from a project that aimed to recycle photographs; from what i have gathered the left over images where thematically organized, this can be seen in their titles and then shredded and then mounted horizontally.
Statics (lingerie catalogue 2), 2000, 40 x 50 cm

In an interview for Flasher, Schmid talks about his methodologies for image making but near the end he says something fascinating; 'many of my colleagues think digital-age is the end of photography' and he thinks it's the beginning. The problem here is that he is an artist, who's output is mostly constructed from vernacular photography; he does not shoot these images! I have felt for a long time that photography was at some kind of end or transition. It has taken me years to get a feel for what i think is occurring. Schmid then talks about how he has the time to look at images online, its his profession. I think a key element that Im feeling is that images in the digital domain are breaking away from the paradigm of photography over it chemically manufactured history. Reading this back it seems blindly obvious but then it also seems natural to be looking at other peoples lives via flickr. Again another blog post where Im left lost; i suppose i keep thinking that so many things that fit into an art-historical discourse occur without any artistic intervention. As an additional note Im loosing faith in my own idea; Im looking at what can be done with the ever growing petabytes of images, what can this data do but as he say's "even a complete idiot can take a fascinating photograph" so can a complete idiot create something with all this visual data. - I would like to add that i think this is a terrible post, it only serves to show how confused it get.

Software:

Gently honing in on what my essay will be discussing: software and imaging. Hoping to go further than just exploring the amazing array of things that can be done with images via computers but to look at the very nature of an image in the digital domain. From it's creation from light into its encoding in binary. Obviously a rather broad area of inquiry that i need to refine, pronto. The first five minutes of this video from Sun's Bryan Cantrill offers an insight into something i have never really resolved:

Although a bit old hat in the online world of digital imaging, Content Aware Image Resizing is a fascinating look at where public level interaction with images is heading (my use of 'level' and 'layer' really need to be defined outside of my mind, so as to make sense to others);

"The basic idea is that if you want to stretch out an image, it will keep the key elements of the photo in sensible places while filling in less important areas. The same goes for shrinking an image - it will eliminate the less important features of an image and leave the main subject areas intact and in the same relative location as they previously appeared in the image."

Any truth that people may have seeked from images is now well buried. Much like the shift to mp3 and the mass loss of quality in comparison to other mediums; many people i have observed accept low bit-rate poorly encoded music with it's shrill treble and muffled bass. The real jokers are the people who listen to music from their phones!! Can they really accept that as progress. There is a point where the mediums entropy begins to effect the enjoyment of the music (message). Here i am creeping into Marshal McLuhan territory, so i suppose i could be looking at the amount of effort required to derive a meaning and how the medium is changing the fundamental content of the information. In this sense images will become a further simulacra.

Composites/Contradictions

The most visual thing i have made thus far. At other end of the scale from the Static Time-lapses this image is created by moving the camera on planar plane over time, when composited together it makes an image with a high amount of spatial information but very little temporal (although this could be increased by spacing the shots further apart in time).

I am of the feeling these images/experiments externalize a confusion that is pervasive throughout the culture i am familiar with. An awkward polarization, im often of the opinion that i just have to do what i do without much thought. In a Death of the Author kind of way. This suits me as often im following desires and intuition rather than the institutionally more desirable didactic de-constructible linear workbook mode of getting where needs to be got. But reading Imomus last night triggered the introspection of ones own methodologies. All of these thoughts are in relation to the university (educational?) complex i am doing so well to avoid latterly. Having spent the best part of the last decade on one side of this system i can say that i feel written. Not to the point that im just a node of this system but in a the way i have to challenge myself to think otherwise.
Where does this leave me and my artifacts. I make them but don't want to justify them. They make me, what i create defines aspects of my understanding. So it would seem on a personal level they are self explorative and on a public level they orphans, open to interactions and interpretations free from me. And just think all i ever wanted to do was take pictures but i have ended scripting representations of an abstraction

David Bohm Implication:

As a quick addition i thought i should add some information about David Bohm, he wrote a very successful book 'Wholeness & the Implicate Order' that posits that all existence is an unbroken whole, many ideas he forwards in the book are very compelling and visible in the world we experience. I read this book about five years ago and it has had a lasting effect on how i try an understand the world and allot of my actions in it. With that in mind I am re-reading it and getting excited all over again. Here is a little taster from Bohm;

Conceptual Demands:

After what can only be described as an extended holiday im feeling like im back on track. Feeling obviously being very different from actually doing. For a long period i have been mauling over where i draw inspiration and im still not sure but it's clear that science is at the front of many of my thoughts more than art or even design.

This video is constructed in the same way as the still images but each square plays a portion of time. Combined the video represents about 13Hrs. The time depth of each square limits the overal resolution within the logic of how these images are made and work this highlights a dilema; a high spacial resolution reavealing a clean image or high temopality reavealing changes. I have alot of idea's to add to this concept that are grown out of a tentative understanding of a test used in quantum theory, although this is by no means the driving force.

Early Test's

I now a have a working version of my hombrew software, it needs a bit of clearing up and testing but now i can produce test images. At the moment these are limited to a few hundred input images, even though the capture software will allow 100'000's of capture the G7 dies and i have yet to find a power adaptor so i might just make one.

This test only used about 300 input photo's and displays only about 5 minutes of captures. The Brownish squares at the bottom are some kind of distorted image data or fault in the program. As i do more test i will solve these issues. I have been unable to output enough frames in any format video or still's that would allow an image to be made at a 1:1 pixel to image ratio. Below is an even earlier test where the scaling had not been resolved and the images colour data was not being represented correctly, this is properly because of the way it was being stored and accessed from memory for the GLPro program. As can be seen when clicked on. The full size images display a fair amount of noise, im not sure how well this can be circumvented, especially given that i want to print them so large. I would accept some compromise except i was aiming to produce the most seductive prints, maybe a bit more effort in the image subject matter might help the balance.

Current Status:

Third year has begun and my enthusiasm proportionally waned. It's hard to quantify exactly what is is about an education at UCE that can be so draining. As yet i have not been assigned a tutor to guide this project but this might turn out to be a good thing. As long as i work.
The first version of the program to reconstruct images is now being tested, i hesitate to say that i have only directed it's development rather than written it but this is mainly because of time constraints. It's written in an age old language, GLPro but it it does the job kind of. I gathered 24Hrs of HDV footage at 1440x1080 so i could gauge the look of images relative to the number of images input but as yet have only managed to process 65,800 of the 2.1 million frames that make up the HDV video file - this is because of a peculiar limitation of Quicktime and MPEG Streamclip to open files over 6.5Hrs or 300Gb in size. By now it's obvious that i have avoided any talk of the content or subject matter that may be contained in these static timelapses. This is for a mixture of reasons, im still developing the idea conceptually in my mind and im of the unfortunate persuasion to not really believe in myself needing to be involved in the authorship of any media. In essence im not really interested in subject matter layer but the process's below that. This is something that needs far more exploration and a dash of theoretical justification to keep tutors from telling their has to be a concept whiles they fail to see it just not in the form of expressing myself with pictures of peoples pets.

Technical Demands

From a purely technical standpoint the creation of each image will be demanding. To obtain a high volume of shots over a period of days will require the camera to be operating 24/7, so tempted as i am to do it with my DSLR it's mirror mechanism would almost defiantly fail. My research has lead me to the Canon G7, mainly because it can interface with a iStopMotion and it's whopping 10 megapixel jpg's. Neither of these are the ideal but are the best for getting the job done in my time-frame. Canon's own software has a time-lapse function but is limited to a measly 1000 exposures and short of using the SDK to create a personal version the choice is between iStopMotion or GBTimelapse

As i envision the final images being printed 30x40 on SuperGloss i would love to be able to work in Raw and get the most out of each image but with the possibility of upto 500,000 source images this is impossible. That said SuperFine Jpg's are almost as good and at 10Mp will certainly scale. Of course their is a possibility that they will need some treatment as small sensors are notoriously noisy and i have a plan! Either batch de-noise, massively time/processor intensive or de-noise each segment used but de-noising software requires bigger area than a few pixels square (tiles) to calculate from my program for cutting them up would need to be modified to provide bigger tiles for this stage.

Looking back over this text it makes little sense to anyone unfamiliar with the concept. I will gather my thoughts and write with clarity the idea soon. In the mean time i'm going to source images at 25fps via HD video camera, even at 25fps it will take 28hrs to capture enough frames to create a final image at 1920x1080. Hopefully all will become clear.....

3rd Year Brief?

After much anxiety and unease i have finally settled on an idea to pursue for my third year studies. Much of my early thoughts for a self directed project were concerned with quantization and the influx of many forms of human information into computers. I felt a strong urge to explore motion, mainly prompted by the knowledge that Biad's VRU had a animazoo capture suit and a loose idea of capturing the creation of a sculpture in the making. However this idea failed to gel in my mind and realizing the technical limitations of having to learn maya and some form of programming language to really get the best out of the data.

I have looked back at two years worth of university work to find an appropriate goal. Out of all the work i have produced only two pieces were of any real interest. ClipTag an Autonomous User Generated Narrative web-page that created short movies and an early video/image making program that created what i have loosely termed Static Timelapses.

The process works by gathering images that would create a single shot over a period of time. The above image is only constructed from about 1500 images/4hours, the pixel by pixel value that creates each segment of the image is tied to the total number of source images. Each whole image represents the a movement of time and challenges the 'decisive moment' philosophy of image making.

Passed.

The photography projects scored a remarkable 70%, although was limited by 'division of labour'. That basicly means that the format for deriving marks has no clear methodolgy for marking group work. Ironicly most of my last two years have been tainted by the course's never ending desire to make us students work in groups, 'thats how it is in the industry' being the motivating buzz-word for disgruntled pests like me who hate working with mindless or just plainly different people. Yes im a snob but when the majority of your project time is spent trying to transmitt a single idea that escapes your fellow team members becuase they only read Heat and think fine art is painting, it becomes tiresome and deeply unrewarding. Leading to feelings of self distrust and undermining what little self confidence your allowed to have before you are officially 'arrogant'.

So working with Pete was a breath of fresh air, we disliked the same things and shared similar course ideologies. And if and when im in the industry i can know that this course tuaght me to bite my lip at most people i will work with and seek out those who further and chalenge you.

It might be worth noting im writing this after looking at a healthy dose of third year work and munching on codine phosphate. I regrettably managed to sound like a complete asshole when talking to a potential guiding tutor for my third year work. Suggesting i was not sure where i fitted in being not very narratively driven and living for production values and technical mastery. Whatever i said under the influnce of the free stolen wine bottle i had drunk, it made me transmit my worst qualitys.

Essay Writting

It's noted among my peers and housemates that while my verbal skills can occasionally show prowess my essay writing skilsl are not even classifiable as skills. With a Friday deadline looming im doing my best to work, any concentration is often pieced by the searing howls of an angle grinder only feet from my top floor window as next door have their roof replaced. Around the three O'clock mark this intermitent (approx. every five minutes) noise found a new addition this time from the neighbors on the otherside who fancyed some light tunes as they renovated their flat (so at some time in the future thay could rape another students account while destorying the local community). Their light tunes where not doing my word count any favours, so i unleashed the beast.
I have never felt compelled to use my Hi-Fi as a weapon but safe in the knowledge my B&W 801 Studio monitors could handle a 1kv line amp my mere 150 watts per channel from a bi-amped Audiolab where going to be signifcanly louder than their tinny, incessant distraction. I donned my ear plug's and picked a current favorite track by New Young Pony Club...... I could hear nothing of their din, only the immense energy of NYPC bass throbbing though me, i knew it was good.
By five past three the Police where knocking on the door! I turned it down with an augument brewing in my mind but then they just drove off. Yet my ears are still assaulted by all the prevous noises.

Finished

This is the final film, its not perfect. Some of the masks drift as they are poorly animated. Its supposed to look like the rich tri-x images of Wales by Joseph Kudelka. I cant find any images of Kudelka' s online - Maybe books are better. 3950 frames later.

A mid-res version for download is available here & a HD 720P version as a torrent here.

Image manipulation

Facinating insight's into technical aspects of some leading edge visual effects. These are the kind that really appeal to me as they dont rely on CGI but use realtime events to create them, unfortuantly most of this stuff ends up getting used in advertisements as their is no other obvious destination for things that appear so gimmicky.
I like to think their would be a way to combine these manipulations of time and visal space with non-narrative film. Chris Marker used the now famous time-slice technique in Le Jetee in 1962 and recently was re-explored by Lars Von Trier in Dancers in the Dark, taking abvantages of digital work flow gave him and opportunity to cut between one hundred camera's with unique viewpoints.