Digital Technology & Creativity

Digital Technology and Creativity Monumental images, each one constructed by assembling several hundred photos, microcosms in which one can be submerged and lost, Jean-François Rauzier’s Hyperphotos offer dimensions where a multitude of details are there waiting to be discovered. For example, one can peruse Beach of Memories over more than 20 yards long, with a resolution of a photographic print (more than 1 billion pixels !) and so take off on a photographic hunt inside the image. « My Hyperphotos are the realization of a longtime dream that would never have been possible without digital technology : to see at the same time the all-over view as well as the intimate one, to stop time and be able to examine all the details of the fixed image. » says the artist. FROM THE FIRST ATTEMPTS – WIDE ANGLE AND PANORAMIC..... Jean-François Rauzier first tried to create his immense visions by using ultra-wide-angle lenses. But the deformaiton and amplification of the perspective that they caused did not work for his idea of creating a vast image into which one can become lost in. “I wanted to re-constittue what I see when turning my head 180°, 270°, and even 360°, without having the impression of going thruough a lens and it’s limits. In any case, even with a “fish-eye”, I couldn’t go more than 180°. And my ambition was to control the deformation without creating a noticeable effect.” He then tried panoramic cameras: the lens mounted on a rotating pole activated by a timemechanism, sweeping the field and projecting the image on a convex film. The results were surprising and magnificent, but this technique also had it’s limits: all of the straight lines parallel to the horizons became curved. ...TO THE JUXTAPOSITION OF DIGITAL IMAGES “I began taking a succession of images from right to left, then putting them together with Photoshop in order to obtain a panoramic image.” But obtaining very thin horizontal images wasn’t sufficient. He decided to take in the vertical aspect in his assembling of the image and came across a cartography problem: how to project on a flat photographe the quarter shpere of a landscape covering 180° horizontally and 75° vertically. “I tried very rapid assembling software (Stitcher de Realviz, for example), but flat projection creates a wide-angle deformation, changing the quality of the image, and speric projection reproduces the panoramique effect with its curves.” In the end he decides on a much longer but more controllable process: assembling the images with Photoshop deforming them as little as possible. But then there were holes... “Imagine that the photos are stones of a domed ceiling that must be laid out on a flat surface. It becomes a triangle: several stones at the base, then less and less on each level going up, ending up with only one at the top: the keystone. What I wanted to obtain was a rectangle.” In order to obtain a rectangle, he must place his clichés in the upper levels with spaces between them, then filling in the holes. So he photographes, cuts out and adjusts a large quantity of details to recreate the missing peices of the puzzle. Still, it’s not at all synthetic images – all the elements are actual photos!

PERFECT DEFINITION “No lens can give the perfect sharpness in one photo, from as close as 12 inches up to infinity, that I can achieve by assempling 200 photos. I wanted total definition: such as on a geography map or a botanical or entomology board, where every plant or animal is specified and in it’s place.” In order to obtain such a result, Jean-Francois Rauzier tirelessly photographes every inch of a landscape with a telephoto lens, shooting at the time of the day that gives optimal light. By shooting in horizontal bands and verifying the focus at each level, all over perfect definition is finally achieved. “At the computer screen, cloning, assemling, redesigning hundred of tree trunks, branches, leaves... I have the impresson of working on a giant puzzle. I escape into a strange exlporation of details that were unnoticed while shooting: a spider on a web in the ferns in the undergrowth, airplanes in the sky invisible to the naked eye, blades of grass, spikes of wheat so variable that the diversity surprises me. It becomes a communion with nature, prospicious to meditation, like an engraving or a sculpture. Time becomes an ally...” Gabriel Bridge, for instance, is the result of three hours of shooting at night: 160 clichés taken blindly with one minute for each one! “Many details became apparent afterwards, the magic of the result, the importance of hasard... The cat was actually present that night, but because the shooting time was so long, I had to photograph it seperately and reincorporate it in the final image.” SUBTRACTING AND ADDING To become totally involved in the landscape and allow it’s inner image to come through, Jean-Francois Rauzier eliminates bothersome details: houses, electrical poles, cars, traffic signs... “To create my ideal world, I remove whatever signifies human presence in order to give the landscape it’s original virginity. Perhaps a kind of quest for a Garden of Eden... However, what is seen in the end is not untouched and wild, but often tamed or cultivated. The fields fascinate me by their sage regularity, the solid and peaceful rythm they impose on a landscape. Nuturing mother nature is controlled and domesticated. And therefore also the dream... “ On the other hand, he replaces quite a few elements. Objects that seem to be waiting for someone: balls, sandals, books, toys, bicycles.. In any case everything is still, frozen in time, sometimes even worrysome, seeming like the aftermath of a catastrophe. “In my first works, there was maybe just one object integrated in the décor: an armchair, a wrecked car... Then I started to repeat the objets to impose a ryhthm in the décor and especially to give it some scale, a notion of distance and depth that had a tendancy to disappear in the empty landscapes.” The landscapes in Jean-François Rauzier’s hyperphotos are very recomposed. To obtain what he’s seeking, he has built himself a collection of trees, skies, fields, forests that he assembles according to his inspiration. This technique allows complete freedom to achieve his desired landscape and to control the lighting, as he’s used to doing in his work as a studio photographer. “I photograph a field with a certain direct light, but then I can choose a completely different sky, creating a surrealistic stormy atmoshpere. It’s like creating a décor on a movie set.” With these highly fabricated images, we are far from the candid photo and much closer to hyperrealstic painting.

“But I still want it to be photography, or like a still shot in a movie, that is believable. I’m careful to stay within the realm of the photo, respecting shadows, reflections, natures real imperfections.” To stop time... During the actual shooting, it’s not so easy. Taking 200 cliches doesn’t take only 1/30 of a second, but more likely at least a half an hour. The tormented skies don’t wait. Sometimes the magnificent light of the sun breaking through the clouds only lasts a few minutes. Hardly the time to begin a series of cliches. “I try to stop time with all it’s dimensions and all it’s possibilities.” Now we have the matter of exposing such works. The installation as well as the photography. Showing them in a smaller format would make them lose their interest. The huge dimensions of these images pose many technical and practical problems: printing machine size, mounting or framing, transporting, finding suitable exhibiting space.... Jean-François Rauzier is working on it. To be continued...