A scanogram is an image composed of two and three dimensional objects placed on the bed of a scanner. Detail can be exquisite in the areas where the objects are within the scanner's depth of field. What is "up" or "down" or "in motion" or within the depth of field is in the control of the image maker.
Ginny is interested in playing with the depiction of gravity, up, down, space, abstraction, motion, and reality. While a scanner has a short depth of field of a fraction of an inch, the blackness of the space that the scanner sensor can't reach expands the sense of depth rather than shortening it.
In addition to using unaltered three dimensional objects on the bed of the scanner, Ginny creates other objects to be scanned such as drawings or paintings or cut out shapes. The resulting image is part reality, part fantasy.
Scanograms have a historical antecedent in the photogram. A photogram is created by putting objects on top of photo sensitive paper and exposing the paper to light. The paper is then processed normally. Usually this process is done using an enlarger in a darkroom but it can be done without an enlarger using photosensitive materials with objects laid on top and exposing the assemblage to light. The artist Man Ray and other artists of the Bauhaus school are among those who worked with photograms.
Ginny has always loved old things. She loves their patina, their history, their associations to families, to a different time. She has photographed still lifes using old objects such as antique shoes, hats, and fabric. Her goal is to portray these objects in a whimsical way that shows their beauty and creates a visual story. The details of the story are left to the imagination of the viewer.
What she likes about creating images this way is that it offers a different way to tell a story. It is up to her as the image creator to make up the details of the story in a way that is somewhat believable. Since she has been a writer too, this is a process that gives her a great deal of pleasure.
The scanograms are progressing from still lifes to landscapes to explorations of Ginny's feelings about aging, mortality, and limitations.
Playing Leapfrog
(For a slide show of scanograms, click on the Leapfrog image.)
