January 3rd, 2011
Today I was back to work. It was a mellow day to begin the work week. It turns out I’ll be working all weekend on The Muppets so I have a full week ahead of me.
On the drive home my thoughts landed on an old post that I did back on Day 062. On that day I decided to use my monome as a tool for light painting photography. I thought about developing the idea further. Then I remembered seeing this video on the internet where some people had devised an app for the Ipad that allowed it to be used as a light painting tool.
It’s pretty cool. Oddly, enough there is a similarity to the concept behind Slitscan photography. Basically, the image is displayed on the Ipad panning through a slit. It’s hard to describe but, while the shutter is open on the camera someone would walk across the frame with the Ipad very slowly while the Ipad pans the image through the slit. The results is the image appears whole in the final picture.
I realized I could emulate this technique using the monome. There’s an old app for the monome called Nerdscroll which performs the basic function of scrolling text. Type in the message and it will scroll across the monome. I used a large book to block out the rest of the leds on the monome except for one column. Then I basically opened the shutter and slowly moved the monome across the frame. As a final touch I used the flash a couple of times in two different spots to light up the scene.
Comments
3 responses to “Day 303 / Monome Light-Typing”
Love it!!! It,s a fascinating technique…the only thing i don,t understand is why the monome body doesn,t appear in the photo…I,m learning right know the basis concept of exposure and this world is like magic to me…Today create digital motion have an article about light painting,the same technique you did few months ago…
Agreed! This is awesome. A great new wrinkle on your light painting.
Thanks guys! @bite, yes it’s a bit confusing if you’ve never done it before. The reason why you don’t see the body of the monome is because it’s much darker then the light of the led’s. Plus I never kept it in one place long enough for the led’s to expose the body. At the end of the shot I flashed a flash on the scene. That’s the only reason you can see the room. Without the flash, the picture would be the text over blackness.
I recommend experimenting!