Alan Jaras is an artist/scientist who since his retirement as a industrial research scientist and microscopist has focused his energy on bridging art and science together with his research “to gain a deeper understanding of how these patterns form and how to make images that hopefully can be considered a form of art.” Using only film, and without a lens on the camera, in what Alan says could still be described as a photogram, he shoots a targeted light source through and a piece of art glass or formed plastic to capture the created refraction patterns. The results, what could be described as “images of strange microscopic or deep sea creatures or even galaxies forming in deep space,” pull at the viewers perception of digital and analog, art and science, all the while expanding our imaginations and understanding of the world around us.
I talked with Alan about his photo process, the inspiration behind it, other beautiful color effects found in nature, and how to start a fire using a flower vase.
Take the time to read through everything Alan has to say and you won’t walk away uninspired, I promise.
COLOURlovers: Hi, how are you today?
Alan Jaras: Today I feel particularly good. I live in the North West of England in the UK and over here we’ve had another wet summer, as we approach the start of autumn today the sun is shining in a clear blue sky, it definitely lifts the spirits.
CL: How do you spend you time?
Alan: I took early retirement from my work as an industrial research scientist and microscopist some years ago intending to spend more time concentrating on photomicrography, macrophotography and photography in general. However, the internet, and Flickr in particular, changed things for me. The worldwide interest in my refraction patterns or “Refractographs” as I call them has set me off in a new direction towards, what looks like, the start of a new career. I work from home and need the dark to photograph the images, so from late September until March when the sun has set and it’s dark enough for me in the evenings I can spend a couple of hours actually taking photographs. Looking directly into the viewfinder at a bright light can be a big strain on the eyes so I limit the length of time. I’ve had over 40 years training peering into microscopes in darkened rooms so I’m quite used to it, but I still want to look after my eyes. During the day I spend a lot of time trying out new ideas, experimenting with plastics, resins, paints, dyes and seeing what sort of new refraction patterns I can create. Like a scientific experiment I keep a careful record of the things I try and all the samples I produce are coded and numbered for future reference. With the interest generated on the internet there is also the need to spend quite a bit of time replying to emails and comments on Flickr.
Looking out of the study window now I can see that after all the rain the lawn grass needs cutting and the weeds are beginning to take over the garden - if the weather stays dry I’ll try to make a start later today. There’s always something waiting to be done.
CL: Can you talk about your photo process.
Alan: I only use film and traditional manual 35mm cameras - I have never used or owned a digital camera (I have nothing against them: just never felt the need for one). For my photography in general I still use cameras from the 1960’s, I don’t have any zoom lenses and I even use a hand held light meter. For my ‘Refractographs’ I don’t even need a lens on the camera, I just use a camera body as a mini darkroom to hold the film while the image is projected directly on to it. The piece of glass, or formed plastic, replaces the camera lens. I think the technique can still be classed as a photogram but whereas the conventional photogram is made in a darkroom as a contact print directly on to photographic paper using an enlarger as the light source, I use a darkened room and a distant point light source and capture the image on to 35mm colour film from which enlargements can be made. After a lot of experimentation on film types I have now settled on using tungsten rated colour slide film (Fujichrome T64). The 64 ISO (ASA) film speed means fine grain size which will give larger enlargements (40″ x 30″ is quite acceptable). For my processing I use a local professional photo lab that specialises in exhibition quality traditional enlarger hand prints, either directly from the colour film using the Cibachrome (now Ilfochrome) process or the film is scanned at high resolution for large digital prints with the associated large file size - a high resolution scan of a 35mm frame can be 250-300MB in size. For web work and evaluation I scan my own images using an Epson Perfection V700 scanner.
We all find inspiration in many different things, all five of our senses can inspire… but I find I am most inspired by music. The audio environments that Matthew Cooper aka Eluvium creates are the perfect places for my mind to go wandering.
I immediately bought two albums on iTunes and reached out to Matthew who happens to live in my home town of Portand (I was in Georgia when I heard his music) and he was nice enough to trade some emails with me about what inspires him and what colors his music is.
CL: General Bio… Who you are, how you got started, why you keep making music, what inspires you most… any other bits you’d like to include.
MC: I keep making music because although I love everything about existence sound is the one thing that never gets old to me. I have a bit of a nervous personality — I’m rather anti-social because of it. When I’m creating music all of that goes away and I find myself awash in colors and thoughts and feelings all over the map — like a warm bath.
Here is a copy of my bio:
Born in Tennessee and raised in Louisville, KY, Matthew Cooper relocated to Portland, OR several years back and has since spent many a night holed up in his house transforming the vibrations in his brain into sweeping walls of elegant noise. With a depth ranging from fragile to glacial, he takes dense layers of guitars, piano, strings and brass, and builds them into an awe-inspiring fortress around himself. Resting comfortably and confidently in the spirits of Brian Eno’s most accomplished ambient pieces, and gaining comparisons to Kevin Shields, Fennesz, Rachel’s, and Sigur Ros, Eluvium is a freakishly beautiful affair. Following a string of increasingly remarkable albums, Matthew has set out to broaden his instrumental palette, while maintaining the uncanny emotional resonance that has become his trademark.
Influences: nature, literature, city planning, walking, science.
-Photo by rEvseev
Radio Ballet by Eluvium
COLOURlovers: Can you generally describe your style of music?… looking for your words, not so much the generic ambient / acoustic genre sort of thing.
“thisissand.com is a website for play. It changes the pixels on the screen into digital sand that can be used as building material for cosmic landscapes, Clemens-style sand paintings, mandalas and so on.”
A joint project by the designers Johanna Lundberg and Jenna Sutela with the Flash programmer Timo Koro, who wanted to create a playground of colors and sound for people to play with them in their sandbox.
To find out a little bit more about their site I sat down with Jenna, Johanna and Timo, turned over an hourglass, and had a chat about things:
COLOURlovers: What inspired you to create This Is Sand?
thisissand.com: The project is a result of a lengthy discussion. We started off with making an animation out of visually interesting computer glitches and related sounds. In the process, we were referring to the computer as a sandbox - a place where you play with given matter, using your imagination to mold it in infinite ways. Just like that, we actually started moving towards to what thisissand.com is today.
CL: What do you do when you are not playing with sand?
thisissand.com: Graphic design, Flash programming, writing and concept design.
COLOURlovers: What is Hexday, and what was the inspiration behind it?
Jon Sykes: Hexday is “a social experiment in color picks” I guess that’s what I’d say. It’s hard to say really. It’s evolving. Originally it was probably more of a test web app. I was just starting to use CakePHP (which is awesome by the way) for my personal project web apps, and I came up with an idea that if you allowed people to pick 1 color and only 1 color every day, what would they pick. So I built a web app around the idea. We had a spurt of traffic when we first launched, then it slowed down (for a few months it was me and 1 or 2 real regulars that were the only posters), it seems to be having a resurgence now which is great and has encouraged me to spend more time in my evenings working on features. I’m constantly struggling with the natural instinct that I need to make the volume higher - sites that do well allow users to keep adding content. Hexday, apart from the sampler, you get to interact with the site once a day. That’s it. It’s really tough to keep people interested when they might only hit a sites once or twice a day. But deep down, I know I shouldn’t change that.
Hexday
If I allowed people to pick as many colors as they wanted, the whole reason for the site would be gone, it’s that forced single choice that hopefully makes people think before they post. If you want to pick endless colors or create palettes there are sites for that, you guys being top of my list, but there are a few others as well. That’s not my market. Eventually I want to make it that people can use the color they pick. I have a few users who use the color they pick each day in their own web sites (as a heading color or a background color), I exposed picks as CSS so they could do this. It’s small enough that I’m very open to requests at the moment.
CL: Hi, how are you today?
Jon: I’m doing very well indeed David, I hope you’re doing well too. It’s 5,52pm and I’ll be leaving work any second for a long weekend of sitting on the beach.
today’s colors
CL: Other than picking a color everyday, how do you spend your time?
Jon: I’m a husband and father of 1, my business card says I’m a “Senior UI Architect” which means I spend most of my days helping people build the front ends for their web apps, helping to direct, influence and eventually provide the means that users can interact with their online apps. I work at a great company called Media Hive. We’re a small agency in vibrant Red Bank, NJ.
The work of Chicago area based artist Vaeda Baty is full of dream inspired, softly colored and richly textured photographs.
Vaeda was nice enough to send us some of her work to share with COLOURlovers, so I asked her a few questions about life and work, and found out what exactly is going on in those inspiring dreams.
‘brotherly love, relief, and truth’
COLOURlovers: Tell me about yourself
Vaeda Baty: I am an independent photographer from the Chicago land area with a simple desire to communicate with the world through creation. I became interested in photography when I realized that everything I have come to know will one day disappear.
CL: Tell me about your work.
Vaeda: Much of my work explores the natural world. I attempt to understand the tension present in a life lived dialectically. Photography is a form of storytelling, and I am moved to be a part of the narrative.
’stained glass visionaries’
CL: What inspires you?
Vaeda: I am inspired the most by great people in my life, my loves. I am also constantly inspired by other artists and my dreams. The beauty of everyday moments and the reality of loss.
CL: What do you look for in your compositions?
Vaeda: They look for me! I will be out and about with my camera and something will draw me into a particular scene. I want to be able to tell a story about the subject. Interesting light is important as well.
’speculative’
CL: Are you attracted to certain colors more than others?
Vaeda: Blue is by far my most favorite color to work with. I am drawn to primary colors in general and often prefer to work with a monochromatic palette. I also love neutrals.
We love color lovers, especially when they love COLOURLovers, and extra especially when they integrate COLOURlovers into their love of spreading the love of color. Such as, our member wearpalettes.
There once was a blog named The Sartorialist who changed the way fashion was viewed and how trends were passed along from city to city, for the better, we hope, as we hope all things are for the better.
One day, a graphic designer by the name of Daniel thought it would be a good idea to archive the inspirational colors of the clothing that he was seeing. Daniel turned to The Sartorialist and their archive of photos to start his journey into the creation of wear palettes. Little did he know that such an idea, was such an idea. One that would touch the hearts of so many, simply with color.
This is the story of daniel and the blog wear palettes.
wear palettes is a blog for color and fashion inspiration. Drawing from the archives of street fashion photos from The Sartorialist, the blog has collected nearly 1600 different palettes, and allows you to search the archive using 22 different tags, if you are looking for color specific inspiration. The creator behind wear palettes is Daniel, a Swiss graphic design student who first had the idea of a clothing color database for one of his school projects.
I sat down with Daniel, at our respective computers located halfway across the world from eachother, to have an intimate chat about wear palettes, COLOURlovers, and fashion.
Daniel: It is a collection, a database of palettes taken from The Sartorialist street fashion pictures. It has almost 1600 units and I update it everyday. Also, the palettes are categorized by color and you can sort through the palettes for colors you are looking for.
Taking inspiration from abstract expressionism, surrealism and impressionism, painters from Salvador Dali, Joan Miró, Jackson Pollack to Paul Klee, and using a 19th century window pane as his preferred medium of expression, Greg Considine has created an inspiring series of smoothly graceful, beautifully volatile and emotional reflection photos.
I got in touch with Greg to tell us a little more about his process of taking refection photos and the color inspiration behind his fluid and imaginative photo series ‘Reflections of Melbourne‘.
COLOURlovers: Tell me about your background.
Greg Considine: I have worked for a long time as a union advocate and recently took a long break to recharge my batteries. Prior to concentrating on reflections I used to shoot color and B&W digital infrared images as well as wildlife. Most of my time off work was spent taking photos, printing and exhibiting.
CL: How did you start taking reflection photos?
GC: As my photographic eye improved I started noticing them and found abstract expressionism, surrealism and impressionism ready made in old plate glass windows.
CL: Can you tell me about your process for taking your reflection photos?
GC: My favored medium for reflection is old 19th century plate glass-the old process produced sheets which were not flat and contain different densities and patterns-these distort the light nicely.
The key to my process is manually focusing telephoto lenses - I find 200mm, 300mm and 400mm all useful and sometimes I use a 600mm. My aim is usually to compose the photo so that the window surrounds are not in frame to reduce or eliminate cropping so that I can preserve large print size options. The right focal length lens enables this.
On February 8th, 2008, the Polaroid corporation announced that the incredible invention of Edwin Land has a permanent expiration date that no refrigeration can postponed; stating, “Polaroid has made the difficult decision to cease manufacturing of instant film products in 2008. We hope that you will continue to choose Polaroid products, as we take instant imaging into the digital platform with exciting new products being launched this year.” The last of the film is projected to expire in September of 2009.
It seems that there is still yet one hope remaining for Polaroid film. Save Polaroid has setup shop to assemble artists and fanatics to save Polaroid.
About Save Polaroid
On February 8, 2008, Polaroid Corporation announced that it will discontinue production of all instant film. This site will document the aftermath of this announcement and will serve as a home-base for the effort to convince another company to begin producing the cherished technology that Polaroid has so carelessly abandoned.
This site is not about saving Polaroid, the company, rather the remarkable invention of Edwin Land, the instant film that made Polaroid a household name.
Since this announcement, we’ve been assembling articles, links, stories and planning out the best way to create a joint effort to save instant film. We’ve contacted Polaroid, Fuji and Ilford about licensing.
- Save Polaroid
Rod Hunting Helps Save Polaroid
My good friend, and fellow member of the Chicago artist family The Post Family, artist Rod Hunting was asked by Save Polaroid to produce a limited run of his Polaroid print to be auctioned off on ebay to raise money for Save Polaroid. I sat down with Rod over some fine malt liquor to discus his ‘Polareds’ project, the end of Polaroid and speeding tickets.
Music is a popular source of inspiration for creating colors and what if the tables were turned with color being the source of inspiration for music?
What is the sound of color?
This abstract question is exactly what Rehab and GAP proposed to 5 music artists — DNTEL, Swiss Beatz, The Blakes, Marié Digby, and The Raveonettes. Then, the music was delivered to video directors, Chris Do, Mary Fagot, James Frost, Tom Gatsoulis, Russ Lemourex and Ryan Ebner to interpret the music and create video. The results can be found at soundofcolor.com.
Nathan Brown, Executive Director of Rehab and Creative Director, Sean Leman took a breather to speak with us about Sound of Color and non-traditional delivery of content.
CL: Please share with us a bit about Rehab’s background:
SL: Rehab was founded in 2002 by Sean Leman and Nathan Brown; both of us had worked at traditional production companies before and felt that the model could be improved upon. We believed that we could be more nimble, more adaptable, and produce work in a lot of different spaces (online, commercial ad campaigns, features, etc.). NB: As we move forward, we’re continually looking for ways to evolve traditional models of entertainment and advertising.
On December 10, 2007, Pantone, Inc. announced Blue Iris #18-3943 as the Pantone Color of the Year. Chosen to spend 2008 leading thousands of colors available in the Pantone universe, Blue Iris #18-3943 takes the honor is stride. Here are some highlights from a recent telephone interview:
When did you hear that you were chosen as the Pantone Color of the Year?
We don’t know until the public knows. I knew I was a finalist because execs at Pantone had been staring at my swatches, but I tried not to think about it until the announcement was made.
Were you surprised?
According to my agent. I had to be told twice, so yeah, I was surprised. At first I thought I was the Pantone color of the day, which is also a considerable honor.
Pantone calls you a “multifaceted hue reflecting the complexity of the world that surrounds us.” What does it feel like to hear comments like this?
I’m not allowed to blush because that would change my color, but if I was allowed I probably would.
Do you see the world as particularly complex?
I see the world as complex, but I also see this complexity as a result of how light manipulates cone cells in the retina. The world is a billion different things, yes, but if I ever get overwhelmed I just stop and think about how everything is just a variation of red, green, and blue.
Pantone says that emotionally you are “anchoring and meditative with a touch of magic.” Is this a fair representation of how you see yourself?
I can see how I may be perceived this way, but some of the colors I’ve dated might feel otherwise.
Are you dating anyone now?
I’m sorry I brought that up. I’d rather keep my personal life private.
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