How One Photographer Is Hacking the Concept of Time 124
An anonymous reader writes "Hungarian photographer Adam Magyar doesn't work like most artists. He takes the world's most sophisticated photographic equipment, then hacks it with software he writes himself — all in order to twist our perception of time inside out. In this latest story from the digital publisher MATTER, Joshua Hammer discovers how Magyar's unique combination of technology and art challenges the way we understand the world. At one point, Magyar realized he needed a 'slit-scan' camera, 'the type used to determine photo finishes at racetracks and at Olympic sporting events by capturing a time sequence in one image. Such cameras were rare and cost many thousands of dollars, so Magyar set out to build one himself. He joined a medium-format camera lens to another sensor and wrote his own software for the new device. Total cost: $50. He inverted the traditional scanning method, where the sensor moves across a stationary object. This time, the sensor would remain still while the scanned objects were in motion, being photographed one consecutive pixel-wide strip at a time. (This is the basic principle of the photo-finish camera.) Magyar mounted the device on a tripod in a busy Shanghai neighborhood and scanned pedestrians as they passed in front of the sensor. He then digitally combined over 100,000 sequential strips into high-resolution photographs.' There are pictures and videos interspersed throughout the article."
There's an app for that. (Score:4, Informative)
There's an free iPhone app [funnerlabs.com] to simulate a slit-scan camera. It doesn't take a "$50,000 camera".
2001: A Space Odyssey (Score:5, Informative)
This is the same photographic technique used to create the stargate special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but putting the camera on a trolley and zooming it in. Here's a really good video on the evolution of the technology. http://youtu.be/KhRo2WbWnKU [youtu.be]
For artistic slit scan photography, check out Jay Mark Johnson's work. It's much more interesting than this stuff, imo.
Re:He's Hungarian and his last name is Magyar? (Score:5, Informative)
Hungary in Hungarian is Magyarország (which translates to "Hungarian country" word by word).
.
Re:The gear makes better photographs.. (Score:5, Informative)
Way to miss the point.
With a stationary slit-scan camera he's imaging t*Y, not X*Y.