Unconventional…

Was going to let go of this post and let it go off for another week, but here I am, trying to finish it to the best I can just before Thursday. Let's hope this works out well!
I was going to post about two main topics. One is related to re-creating (old) panoramas from adjusted RAW files (if you don't know me by now, I usually shoot for HDR when it comes to panoramas), and two is presenting some ideas about representing images. However, the first topic did not go smoothly (for now) but I will post about it later hopefully. I'll dedicate this post mainly for the second topic, which I thought of calling "Unconventional," because it is all about weird or not-so-common dimensions when representing photos. 

Unconventional

As I've said above, it is just a bunch of ideas that raced through my mind lately. However, it is not the first time. I'm just taking one step further in this topic of representing photos in some unconventional ways.
The idea, in simple terms, is to get rid of the conventional ways of representing photos in "orthogonal" axes, namely rectangular or square frames. Instead, how would it be if photos are represented freely? Essentially, this is not new, since in classical times many photos (specially portraits) were cut to fit a circular or an oval framing; A trend that seems to have had disappeared in current times, specially with the digital era. My thoughts, however, roam about and around both realms: The digital, and the print.

عين السلطان (The Sultan's Eye)

Killing Evil

The idea of breaking the dimensions is not new to me as I've done that already with my panorama in Oman from inside the Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat back in 2015, The Sultan's Eye. This image is a panorama rendered in little planet format and that formed beautiful concentric circles which inspired me then to cut out the edges and make it as a perfect circle as a whole. To keep the image as a circle, I had to save it as PNG which, along with GIF, is a format the saves transparency in the image and can be dealt with through the web. On the web though, people might not realize that the image is "circular" because, simply, the frame is still rectangular in shape; A user would only figure this out if they downloaded the image or changed the background color in the viewing environment, which is something seldomly done. I really wanted to print this panorama on aluminum and present it to the Omani embassy here but I've always racked up this desire on the shelf for more important matters then (and now). The workers in the aluminum workshop told me already that the image can be indeed made into a circle using a water-powered special gun to cut out the edges into a perfect circle as in the image.
Another method which was used in the past and nowadays is to shoot the subject across various images, as can be seen in Killing Evil, which was part of a project back in 2017 when I was with the group then. In the past though it was realistically through shooting several shots (mainly polaroids) and exhibit them in that manner, attached together or glued in some way to form the full shape of the subject. Probably I can call this a "broken panorama" of some sort. Anyway, this is what I did in Killing Evil but rather digitally than physically (and it was never intended to be printed). It can be of course, but I never did. Here in Killing Evil, the background was painted black already for the purpose of displaying the image digitally, otherwise it could have remained transparent as well (and saved as PNG).

 

The Floating Inchagoill

Both The Sultan's Eye and Killing Evil were some artwork from the past, but the idea progressed further as I was working (again) in recent years with this panorama from inside the historical Inchagoill church which I've shot back in 2014. What happened here, after stitching this old panorama anew, is that I wanted to minimize the distortion in trees because they were closer to the top of the image. Thus, I made the main subject smaller and smaller towards the center to reduce this distortion and that resulted, of course, in a vast blue area from the sky. Things followed after the stitch and when I looked at this image, I thought to myself, why would I make this image rectangular or squared? I've tilted the "planet" here on purpose, to reduce the distractions in the trees further as much as possible. So, instead of cropping the surplus area of blue and make the image as a "square", I thought why not cut it along the general orientation of the planet as a whole, and keep the transparency. If, for any reason, this image is to be printed, I would definitely display it as it is; Tilted like that. 

Unconventional Green Delight

As I progressed further, trying to experiment and explore my options more, I've started cropping some images to see how would they look like, as the one above, Unconventional Green Delight, which I've purposefully shot tilted. In this image, I've used squares to crop the main body in the image (the central stem) along with the branching ears. Anyway, when I compare this method with the cropping of The Floating Inchagoill, I do realize that the squares here do not get along with the main subject which is composed of lines mainly. It looks rigid. Probably if I did spread the shoot for this plant on several frames and then combine them together as was the case with Killing Evil - probably things could have looked better, as the broken lines in Killing Evil were done on purpose and by virtue of design these separate frames do act as if they are trying to grab the attention of the viewer to every detail of the full image spreading across the many frames. I might work again with this image and try to cut it with straight lines instead (it is hard to take several shots of it and combine them later).

Unconventional Planeta Cuvaitum (2011)

Unconventional Planeta Herba (2012)

Probably you've noticed the trend now with starting each image of those with Unconventional. Anyway, working further on exploring what can be done about this kind of images (or format of images), I've thought right away of checking some of these old planet panoramas that I've done in the past. In fact, they seem to be the most proper candidate for such non-orthogonal cuts by virtue of their original design, as planets; This is of course limited to these panoramas done outdoors because we can have some portion of the sky which is easier to cut (relatively, not always). However, the sun proves to be problematic in such compositions, and while it can be removed altogether from Unconventional Planeta Cuvaitum it is yet hard to do so with Unconventional Planeta Herba, because it mingles with elements on the planet itself. This said, though, I do like how the random branches of these bushes in Unconventional Planeta Herba look like as if they were floating in space with no blue sky. I wonder how would this thing look like if just by magic I was able to print it in 3D?

Thoughts:

Well, I'm not a tech guy by any means, but this is something that I've been reflecting about and wondering about the technical difficulties that do face such representations for photos, away from the orthodox methods that are common and know.
Now, images like The Sultan's Eye or The Floating Inchagoill can be quite easy to be printed and cut out, but it won't be the same for sure when it comes for images like Unconventional Planeta Herba which has a great amount of details in the brushes that need to be cut out. Probably a handwork with specialty cutting knives would do? Maybe. Though I can't imagine it done that way. If objects were done in 3D with 3D printers, I do foresee or maybe I can dream that such flat images of floating pixels and that had been cut off from its background in irregular shapes - that, might as well be done in some manner and methodology related to the technology of 3D printing. This really reminds me of those visual aids and prints that we used to do as kids for school, but those images were, well, paintings; Very simple paintings and made specifically to be cut out.

Now that was on the physical plane, but I'm not sure how easy it would be on the digital plane. Sure, images can be displayed on the web (like you see here in this post) using PNG format. However, there are two or three issues, at least for me:

1. The format itself. I think PNG is acceptable on most platforms right now but I don't think it is as common as JPG. Also, to what I know, it is not compressed. Thus, even though the image is saved with transparent pixels that are supposed to not carry any data of any color, these do take up a considerable size. Also, I'm not sure that the web in general is flexible with TIFF format, yet.
   
2. Displaying these photos, like in this blog, or anywhere else on the web really, still takes the rectangular dimension. I remember back in the 1980s and 1990s when printed newspapers were THE thing, they had back then some methods to incorporate images within the articles where the text seeps on the sides of such images, making the images appear as floating over the text. This can be done in editing phase in Photoshop (I did that for some ads and posters) but imagine this is done right away on the web by default. The transparent pixels that the image has are not yet truly transparent in my opinion because the image is still dealt with and considered as a rectangle and the text goes about that accordingly.
3. A minor issue: How would the viewer on the web feel or get the impression that image is floating or somewhat 3D, with transparent background? If the background is plain, typically black or white, and sometimes gray (well, most of the time that is), then a viewer probably get that impression about the image (maybe not so if the background is colored indeed). Or, maybe a shadow can be added to the image to give the impression that it is floating but, again, this shadow should not be added in Photoshop (using layer effects), but rather in the viewing environment (e.g. web browser). Technically, I don't know how this is possible, or whether it is possible at all.

These are some thoughts about displaying and printing images with "unconventional" dimensions and transparent background. Not sure how practical these are (most probably not) but it would have been somewhat amazing to see images floating, beside displaying such images in exhibitions and art galleries, at a considerable size. I think it would deliver some 3D sensation to the viewer (better than those anaglyphs that I've printed for some exhibitions I'd say). 

Finale

So, these are some thoughts about what I've been working on and thinking of in the past weeks, and still. There was another matter considering re-working old panoramas using processed RAW files instead of the typical HDR approach that I usually follow with panoramas. However, this one needs a lengthy work and considerations must be taken. So far, all my trials had failed and the only way successful one was actually a combination various RAW files, but that's a story for another time. 

Old (HDR tone-mapping)

New (processed RAW)

The difference is clear. However I do it in HDR, I couldn't possibly get natural as the new one done with RAW files only. But, the catch is, the panorama done with the RAWs are a bit complicated for the time being. Something I will check further in the coming weeks hopefully.

As you read this, I hope life did not have its toll on your mood and spirit already. I'm not sure where I am heading with all of this, but I do wish that one day, I would open my eyes and it's all gone. Just, gone… see you.