I’m gonna do a “lamp simulation” (a circular gradient with constant tint and varying brightness, based on the abstract model of a “perfect lamp,”) based on 11 colors: 3 times RGB with 3 levels of brightness (I dont enter into the detail of how I choosed them) and Black/White.
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Light ON/OFF, hi-resolution orthographic panorama made with Hugin.
For me, there’s not much difference between such a work (the prototype, made of laserprints on paper) and a “traditionnal painting.”
I’m really starting to think it’s just the same thing, like Richter includes amateur photography in the field of “painting.”
The prototype is finally finished!
So, to explain in a few words: 1-the amount of light projected by high-power spots on the wall has been measured. 2-an algorithm has been created to absorb the light using black over white laser-prints until the wall’s surface emits the same amount of light to the eyes of an observer situated in front of it. 3-The central part of this print has been cut and the same process remade a second time within the limits of this cut.
The impression produced is impossible to reproduce in photography, so the pictures there are just “documentation.” The impression is a bit like if the light was actually coming from “behind” the wall, like if the rectangle was a “window,” opening the wall, like in a dark corridor…
I’m really happy with it, I think it would be great to remake this much bigger the next time (and after developping the tools for it, I could make it much faster and more precisely…) I’m thinking of a “virtual corridor.” I’ve always been attracted by the idea of “remaking” the corridors of italian museums, where you walk slowly and stop at every painting on your sides. I could now make the painting of a corridor of paintings… :)
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NORMAL LIGHT
TRANSFORMED (EQUALIZED) LIGHT
The bad news: the laser printer cannot handle large black prints, some unit of the printer makes a random glossy layer on it.
the random gloss
the (very) good news id that the luminance correction is not very angle-dependant, means that except for that random gloss, the correction works at a wide variety of viewpoints, that’s really nice.
from the left side, the gloss dissappears and the flat is still “flat.”
below: zooms on different parts from the left side (same shutter speed)
The calibration of the material is a heavy task – but now the system works.
Below are two pictures representing light measurements in RAW mode (linear) on my digital camera, every pixel is made after 1 photo which has been croped and averaged, and they correspond to +- 10 x 10 cm zones of the wall.
The 1st picture has been made with 1/4 sec. aperture, the second with 1/2 sec.
The continuitiy has been reproduced after the pixel values in a spreadsheet program (see below).
It looks pretty surprising, but the Black density of the random-pixel-distribution printed samples placed on the wall corresponds exactly to the correction needed to make a “ganzfeld.”
That means that: THE AMOUNT OF DIFFUSED LIGHT IS STRICTLY EQUAL (well… sctrictly is a big word! :) AT POSITION A, B, C etc.
However, the eye & brains “fight” against these equalities, trying to “tell” that the sample A is darker and B is lighter, even if the amount of light that they redirect in my direction is strictly equal for A & B…
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The lightness will change as if there was a perfect lamp at 17 cm from the center of the figure.
The white structure appears really “transparent.”
This geometrical solution could be called the “pixel solution,” since the surface is divided in 2×2 cm squares, other solutions are possible and will be tried later on the study: concentric zones, gradients… The only color added to the grey background is Titanium White (TW), later I’ll try color, enjoy ;)