For the whole effect please play this music. Once it gets going slowly scroll down for the full experience. Hope you enjoy this and have a wonderful day because of it.
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All Photographs by Algis Kemezys
These images of the wildflowers of Québec were created by using the scanner as a camera.
I spent two consecutive summers in the Laurentian town of Val Morin, whose most notable feature is a cascade of wildflowers that circles its lake and extends along the bike path that spokes away from the town for one hundred kilometers.
I yearned to record this profusion of colour and shape, but I was rather broke at the time, so conventional film photography was just out of the question. The scanner would have to do.
I would go out in the early morning and ask which flowers would like to be picked and enter the digital world as a new creation. Then I would pick the ones that were swaying most in the wind just to catch my eye. While picking them I would ask for a visual picture of how the flower would like to be arranged and then try to recreate that inspiration on the platen of the scanner.
Part of the difficulty of composing a picture in this fashion is that you are working with a reverse image. The other is that the arrangement must be just so or it won’t work.
There is freedom and spontaneity in creating a photograph but one still has to follow strictly the rules of dynamic composition of the Pythagorean golden formula of 1: 1.618
Here's what Byron Ayanoglu wrote about my wildflowers:
"Nature humbles the most insouciant among us with its frills and its ability to dazzle. Artists, who by definition enjoy above-average sensibilities and powers of observation, have in nature a fount of endless inspiration. In this portfolio of skillfully reinvented wildflowers, Algis lets his imagination run wild to present for our consumption a feast of addictively visual portals into a world of his own making. These are no longer merely beautiful flowers that most of us usually look at for fleeting moments during a walk in the countryside. These are works of art that tell stories and that linger in the mind long after we have looked at them. He has taken these fleeting wonders of springtime and made them eternal with attention to detail, with whimsy, with bold use of color and composition, with awe for their fragile and ephemeral airiness, with enormous talent. And an intellect that can particularize the universal truths of seemingly ordinary miracles of nature, enhancing their meaning and exponentially expanding our appreciation. I could happily surround myself with these images to look at them daily, to marvel at their simple complexity, to begin to understand myself."
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Comments
I could never do this well at photography.
Cheers and THX!
This brought tears.
Lovely work, Algis--some of your very best.
totally rated
Fantastique!
HUGGGGGGGGGG
Poor Woman, Thanks so much! I really liked your current post too!
Linda, Merci et plus! Your the best!
Well worth the time.
Most excited to see this Algis.
have i told you lately yr posts calm old violence in me?
"I would go out in the early morning and ask which flowers would like to be picked and enter the digital world as a new creation. Then I would pick the ones that were swaying most in the wind just to catch my eye. While picking them I would ask for a visual picture of how the flower would like to be arranged "
uncanny, but certainly true. witness the Art.
So nice to end my busy day with beauty, thank you.
~R~
Maureen J Andrade, Yes this was inspired by that song for I too had not heard it in years. The Mole thanks you too and well as I most graciously. Thanks MJA!
Mission, OMG I am speechless and oh so appreciative thanks Big time M!
asia rein, OMG this is just making me speechless but I can say Thanks a million AR!
ccdarling, Yes the scanner is a single plain view camera and one can make lots of images that are both fun and surreal. Glad you enjoyed the whole package here and thanks Big time CCD!
Chicken Mãâàn, And my insouciant heart beats fondly and more for these wonderful words here. Thanks so much CM!
zanelle ,,Yes I have made do nicely over the years when my cameras have broken. Beauty is also in the eye of the beer holder too. Thanks Big time Z!
jlsathre, I shall pass that on to Byron and you simply lay things very carefully on the scanner and scan it several times as you have to adjust things till they are just right. At first it was time consuming then I used to get them pretty right on later. Thanks again and again J!
jmac1949, Now that is simplicity and praise in it’s most easlily understood context. Thanks again JM!
Belinda T., Then you are my tour de force leader and I appreciate every word of that. Thanks a lot B!
James M. Emmerling, I am so pleased to hear that from someone who has graced my images with some of the best replies over the moonths. Your the best and thanks BIG TIME JME! I see the resemblance of you and your Dad too..How about another glass of wine for you to, here and now?
nilesite, OMG maybe we will see each other sometime then? Thanks so much for that Queen annes lace rules and you too! Thanks N!
Deborah Méndez Wilson, OMG I imagine you are right here and I would love to try that myself one day to see what the results would be like afterwards if one was doing this. Thanks so very much and so glad you loved it all DMW!
Deborah Méndez Wilson, I do sell my prints and these are 300.oo for a matted 11x14 print. They have also been published and exhibited as well. Thanks again DMW!
Cynthia Neale, I am So glad that I provided it too. Thanks again and again....CN!
Lea Lane, Hey hey hey... Thanks Big time and Hugs from Byron LL!
M. C. S,. Teardrops on the fire...that make the flowers blossom....Thanks so much for that MCS!
JALI 17, Now I know the gods are happy when you say that...Thanks so very much because I imagine you singing this too! Thanks J!
SheilaTGTG55, I think your right and I have been tweaking this as the day passed and still will fix a few things. Your right on and I am so glad you said that here. Thanks Big Time S!
Midwest Muse, Thanks so much for that. I really do appreciate it. Thanks MM!
VariousArtists, Great great great we both like the same obscure song. I am so pleased now. Thanks Big Time VA!
Miguela Holt y Roybal, Yes all things in this world conform to the golden ratio which is present in the image of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo and everything else grows around that formula. Sea shells, bee hives, trees and most other things. It is the great mystery of the creator here imbued in everything. Thanks so much MHR!
Blinddream, OMG that is so nice to read I love it. I am a novelist...I am a novelist and Blinddream says so! Your fab for that always. Thanks BD!
Blinddream, Hey it is now! Thanks again oh magical one of great praise and more.
I generally do not crop my images. All my photographs tend to be full frame affairs.
I only knew I was getting good at this when upon picking the flower I seemed to see the image of how the final result should be. If I followed this, I found after a few weeks I could lay the arrangement down almost perfectly with only one fix and then another scan of the flowers for the final image.
Many folks are doing this now and the results are far more breath taking than mine. It also must be said that at first I was trying to make images like those old drawn botanical plates that were made in the 1800reds. It was years later that I started to paint on these with photoshop. I still like doing it as well even to this day. A couple here were made just for this post today.
R♥
Inspirational indeedy.
"Press send and the /r button please FRed(tm) - then brush your fur orf the lapDancing computer."
MAY 19, 2012 04:25 PM
FusunA, I am so glad you feel so passionate about this and thanks so much having faith in these images . Your the best. Tacheker...F!
MAY 20, 2012 02:32 PM
Julie White, OMg great thanks for finding that JW!
MAY 20, 2012 04:54 PM
CreekEnd UK, Your a good soul and you know my grandmother was from Nottingham.
Oh yeah. Synesthesia at its best. ~r~

Jett Noire, LOve that word!!! So glad you used it here. Your Great and Thanks so MUCH JN!
Thoth, Thanks for those very fine words and more Mr T!
MAY 21, 2012 11:07 PM
Gary Justis, Thanks so much Gary, I like them too but back then when I made them, 10 years ago, they seemed so much more dynamic. Cutting edge, currently they hold up and seem to sparkle when i paint in the extra visual effects.
l'Heure Bleue, I am so pleased to hear that. Hope your keeping fine as well?
trilogy, That is so good to read. Maybe Fusuna is right maybe I need to get these images out there.
MAY 22, 2012 06:16 PM
zanelle, Your very welcome with a HUG Zanelle...A Hug for everyone else too.
But...as they are here...will also do quite well...
Thank you for the painstaking preservation of these extraordinary images...
rated with love
RomanticPoetess, Thanks so much RP,I guess the next frontier for me is baking bread now that I live in the forest under the aegis of Mont Baldy!
Fay Paxton Thanks so much for that, I am so glad it worked for you FP!
Robin Robinson, Thats a mouthful and I appreciate every word. THX RR!
Kathy Knechtges, You are too and thanks so much KK!