There are things I miss about traditional “wet darkroom” photography – the magic of watching an image appear in the developer; the photogram, where objects are scattered on photographic paper, which is then exposed and developed; even the anticipation during the time, often days or weeks, between the exposure and the print. Scanograms use a technique I have invented to create the digital equivalent of the photogram. I open the flat-bed scanner and start a scan. I then “paint” with some object – in this case a tulip – over the moving scanning bar. I don’t get to see the result until the scan finishes, so I also get back some of the anticipatory delay that I have missed.
If you look closely, you will see bands of red, green and blue around some of the scanogram’s features. These are a result of the way the scanner works – sequentially scanning in the digital primaries – combined with the flower’s motion.
The only processing I do on the result is to (laboriously) take out the inevitable dust spots. I also crop it a little bit to make its proportions better for standard frames.