Digital Technology and Creativity

Monumental images, each one constructed by assembling several hundred photos,microcosms in which one can be submerged and lost,

Jean-François Rauzier’sHyperphotos

offer dimensions where a multitude of details are there waiting to bediscovered. For example, one can peruse

Beach of Memories

over more than 20 yardslong, with a resolution of a photographic print (more than 1 billion pixels !) and so take off ona photographic hunt inside the image.

« My Hyperphotos are the realization of a longtime dream that would never have been possible without digital technology : to see at the same time the all-over view as well as theintimate one, to stop time and be able to examine all the details of the fixed image. »

saysthe artist.

FROM THE FIRST ATTEMPTS – WIDE ANGLE AND PANORAMIC.....

Jean-François Rauzier first tried to create his immense visions by using ultra-wide-anglelenses. But the deformaiton and amplification of the perspective that they caused did notwork for his idea of creating a vast image into which one can become lost in

. “I wanted tore-constittue what I see when turning my head 180°, 270°, and even 360°, without having theimpression of going thruough a lens and it’s limits. In any case, even with a “fish-eye”, I couldn’t go more than 180°. And my ambition was to control the deformation without creating a noticeable effect.”

He then tried panoramic cameras: the lens mounted on a rotating pole activated by a time-mechanism, sweeping the field and projecting the image on a convex film. The results weresurprising and magnificent, but this technique also had it’s limits: all of the straight linesparallel to the horizons became curved.

...TO THE JUXTAPOSITION OF DIGITAL IMAGES

“I began taking a succession of images from right to left, then putting them together withPhotoshop in order to obtain a panoramic image.”

But obtaining very thin horizontal imageswasn’t sufficient. He decided to take in the vertical aspect in his assembling of the imageand came across a cartography problem: how to project on a flat photographe the quarter shpere of a landscape covering 180° horizontally and 75° vertically.

“I tried very rapid assembling software (Stitcher de Realviz, for example), but flat projectioncreates a wide-angle deformation, changing the quality of the image, and speric projectionreproduces the panoramique effect with its curves.”

In the end he decides on a much longer but more controllable process: assembling theimages with Photoshop deforming them as little as possible. But then there were holes...

“Imagine that the photos are stones of a domed ceiling that must be laid out on a flat surface.It becomes a triangle: several stones at the base, then less and less on each level going up,ending up with only one at the top: the keystone. What I wanted to obtain was a rectangle.”

In order to obtain a rectangle, he must place his clichés in the upper levels with spacesbetween them, then filling in the holes. So he photographes, cuts out and adjusts a largequantity of details to recreate the missing peices of the puzzle. Still, it’s not at all syntheticimages – all the elements are actual photos!

PERFECT DEFINITION

“No lens can give the perfect sharpness in one photo, from as close as 12 inches up toinfinity, that I can achieve by assempling 200 photos. I wanted total definition: such as on ageography map or a botanical or entomology board, where every plant or animal is specified and in it’s place.”

In order to obtain such a result, Jean-Francois Rauzier tirelessly photographes every inch of a landscape with a telephoto lens, shooting at the time of the day that gives optimal light. Byshooting in horizontal bands and verifying the focus at each level, all over perfect definitionis finally achieved.

“At the computer screen, cloning, assemling, redesigning hundred of tree trunks, branches,leaves... I have the impresson of working on a giant puzzle. I escape into a strangeexlporation of details that were unnoticed while shooting: a spider on a web in the ferns inthe undergrowth, airplanes in the sky invisible to the naked eye, blades of grass, spikes of wheat so variable that the diversity surprises me. It becomes a communion with nature, prospicious to meditation, like an engraving or a sculpture. Time becomes an ally...”

Gabriel Bridge, for instance, is the result of three hours of shooting at night: 160 clichéstaken blindly with one minute for each one!

“Many details became apparent afterwards, themagic of the result, the importance of hasard... The cat was actually present that night, but because the shooting time was so long, I had to photograph it seperately and reincorporateit in the final image.”

SUBTRACTING AND ADDING

To become totally involved in the landscape and allow it’s inner image to come through,Jean-Francois Rauzier eliminates bothersome details: houses, electrical poles, cars, trafficsigns...

“To create my ideal world, I remove whatever signifies human presence in order togive the landscape it’s original virginity. Perhaps a kind of quest for a Garden of Eden...However, what is seen in the end is not untouched and wild, but often tamed or cultivated.The fields fascinate me by their sage regularity, the solid and peaceful rythm they impose ona landscape. Nuturing mother nature is controlled and domesticated. And therefore alsothe dream... “

On the other hand, he replaces quite a few elements. Objects that seem to be waiting for someone: balls, sandals, books, toys, bicycles.. In any case everything is still, frozen intime, sometimes even worrysome, seeming like the aftermath of a catastrophe.

“In my first works, there was maybe just one object integrated in the décor: an armchair, awrecked car... Then I started to repeat the objets to impose a ryhthm in the décor and especially to give it some scale, a notion of distance and depth that had a tendancy todisappear in the empty landscapes.”

The landscapes in Jean-François Rauzier’s hyperphotos are very recomposed. To obtainwhat he’s seeking, he has built himself a collection of trees, skies, fields, forests that heassembles according to his inspiration. This technique allows complete freedom to achievehis desired landscape and to control the lighting, as he’s used to doing in his work as astudio photographer.

“I photograph a field with a certain direct light, but then I can choose acompletely different sky, creating a surrealistic stormy atmoshpere. It’s like creating a décor on a movie set.”

With these highly fabricated images, we are far from the candid photo and much closer tohyperrealstic painting.