I knew it was you! LOL..

Shot just for you with my HP ScanJet 5370C.

Thanks for the kind words.

Hi, philippe,

I'm making a point here. This was shot with my scanner...not with a camera, per se. Please forgive the staginess as this self portrait wasn't too easy to accomplish.

Thanks for the comment.

What kind of scanner can take a photo like this? Did you just scan in a print you had?

...Andrew...no, this is not a scan of a print. This is an image of the three-dimension items I put in front of the scanner glass.

I just turned my flat-bed scanner on its side, brightened the lighting around my desk, composed my shot, clicked the "Save" button on my scan software, put myself in position and held real still.

That explains the strange effect on your hand and face. Very interesting attempt, anyway. Just to demonstrate the scanner IS a camera! Well done!

@philippe...there are definitely some artifacts in there. Here's an article by a guy who actually converted his scanner into a digital camera

http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/scanner.html

I never made any claim that a scanner makes a *good* digital camera--just that a scanner *is* a basic digital camera. This photo, shot especially for this them, proves my point, I think, however mediocre the image is.

By the way, I had to work hard to look so disheveled, lonely and desperate. I'm actually a distinguised, handsome guy with a sunny disposition. LOL

Hah. A scanner to capture a non-linear image. Neat idea. Of course now that I see that this is also a self portrait and the background is the way it is because that is the way it is with a scanner I have to ask- is the name of the wine a commentary on the fellow in the background? Oh and how much of that bottle did you empty yourself? Share, man, share! We need to get around a campfire with some fat bastard some time!

Ya know this is warped but if you were giving the finger with your hand on your head I'd be so into this image! Like I said warped but the image has a defiant feel to it and that would just add so much to it.

@Dan...I wanted to put something against the scanner glass to have a point of focus and for part of the image to be captured by the scanner in the traditional way. I put the "Fat Bastard" label there to make folks like you and Philippe smile.

I only noticed after posting the shot that I could have been shooting the finger because it kinda gives that impression, but that's not my style.

I got higher marks in every category that I got for my "Rain" image (even after your ratings lowered my overall average to 3.6), so my scanner may be become my primary digital camera (kidding, of course).

Thanks for the comments.

To folks who may be looking at this strange image and reading the comments after it was featured:

This image was shot as a continuation of my argument, began with image #240 in the "Lines" theme, just past, that an image from a scanner is a photograph. My argument was not that "Lines" image #240 was a traditional photograph, nor a good photograph, but simply that it *was* a photograph.

The image above was shot with the same scanner that was used for 'Lines" image #240.

King, this is a brilliant image no matter how you did it. Perhaps because I get lots of feedback from painters, I don't care too much about the niggly things technically about an image these days. The story and feeling the image conveys is much more important to me and this one hits the mark. Well done.

This is awesome...as for something being "too staged" what does that mean? Was the Pieta too staged? Stage away, King...you make great statements when you've really got something to say.

I never came back to you on your comment. Now I fully understand what it is you are trying to point out, and gosh I totally agree with you, that it is a legitimate way of recording an image (along with all the other ye olde methods you mentioned earlier). I do not agree that the scan of the Duane Michals poem is legitimate, but there we can stay in disagreement. This is wonderful, as I was indeed the first to say! I think we should have a theme with this as the brief. What do you think?

@psychodudu...define legitimate as it pertains to my scan of the Duane Michals poem (#240 in the Lines theme), which I never claimed was of a type of photography pertinant to WS. I simply claimed and do claim that it is a photograph. All scans are photographs.

Thanks for your understanding, he said, smiling.

Because #240 appears two dimensional, and is composed entirely of words, it doesn't "feel" like a photograph to me, even though technically of course it is a "photo" "graph" ("written" "light").

Hi, George...and my position is that it doesn't have to "feel" like a photograph to be, in fact, a photograph. Maybe I should take a landscape photograph with my friend's Nikon D70 that doesn't "feel" like a photograph, such that people think the subject was two-dimensional and was scanned.

Thanks, as usual, for your thoughtful comments.

I really like scanner photography, but I have to compliment you on going a different direction with it. Most I've seen so far has been about capturing dried flowers and fruit against a drop-cloth background, and then tweaking colors beyond Velvia.

Nonetheless I think you should continue leaving brochures for digital cameras near the breakfast table. Next to that you could make a custom-label for a book entitled "If only my wife could read my mind and realize that a dSLR is what I want for Christmas."

Folks...Flatline knows that I long to own a supremely high-quality digital SLR, but
1. Can't afford it; and
2. Couldn't justify the purchase if I *could* afford it--especially now that my wife knows that my flatbed scanner image has been featured.

@Flatline...thanks for the compliment.

Knowing the unusual technique makes me appreciate this image all the more.
Thank you.

Hi, King. On the very specific point that it doesn't have to "feel" like a photograph to in fact be a photograph, I agree. And if that was your only point in submitting the image, I get it. (I'm also wowed and intrigued that you turned a scanner on its side and made this image - I don't have a scanner and have rarely ever used one, so I didn't know such a thing was possible.)

If your aim was also for people to interact with the image in the same way they interact with images that give the illusion of being 3 dimensional (i.e. "traditional" images), then in my opinion it fails. But I don't imagine that was a goal of yours :-)

So....what does the "General Help Wanted" ad refer to?

@my pen pal, George. Re the "General Help Wanted." It's part of the "Alone" scenario I invented. The Fat Bastard is unemployed, so doesn't have a social life at his job. He is also undereducated, so his job prospects are limited. He's probably broke and has no family to turn to for help.

On top of that, he can't figure out how to use his scanner.

Oh, well--been there, done that.

King, you crack me up. This is a great continuation of the discussion back in the "lines" theme; but frankly, more than proving that a scanner is indeed a camera, this image (and it being featured) only goes to show that technology is only a small part of being a good photographer. No short cuts for the rest of us...

I'm laughing too. This has been the most entertaining theme to date. Thanks, King. I have a new appreciation for art, and my first accidental pen pal to boot. (And I never woulda thunk my first pen pal would be a Fat Bastard :-)

Folks,

For a photograph that looks like a scan of an old poster, see this great shot by Baris (digitalpeace):

http://www.weeklyshot.org/theme/arrow/response/50/