Katinka Matson: A new twist on botanical images
April 5th, 2007 by Kathy Purdy · 9 Comments
Katinka Matson does not photograph flowers–she scans them. I don’t know how she manages to not flatten them, or how she gets a black background, but they look almost three dimensional, and the colors are exceptionally vibrant. Besides the front page, check out the archived galleries on the artist’s bio page (which also has an explanation of her technique) and also these prints. Truly amazing. Thanks to Doug Green for the tip.
Popularity: 13% [?]
Categories: Flowers on the Brain
Tags: botanical_art· photography
About Kathy Purdy
Kathy Purdy discovered the joys of writing in fourth grade, when she started corresponding with a former classmate. She's been writing letters ever since, first on looseleaf, then electronically, and now as weblog entries. That makes you, the blog reader, her pen pal. Her first independent (though frustrating) attempts at gardening were made in high school, though the gardening bug didn't bite hard until her mid-thirties, when she found herself mistress of a rural home on 15 acres. •
USDA Hardiness Zone:4 • AHS Heat Zone: 3 • Location: rural;
Southern Tier of NY • Geographic type: foothills of Appalachian
Mountains • Soil Type: acid clay • Experience level:
intermediate
• Particular interests: colchicums, narcissus, cottage gardening, NY
native plants, gardening with/for children
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9 responses so far ↓
1
Ki
// Apr 5, 2007 at 6:15 am
The scans are beautiful. I’ve seen other scans of sea shells and they were similarly amazing. I believe you just place the object on the scanning bed, turn out the light and start scanning. I heard someone also lifted the scanner and pointed it towards a brightly lit scene, essentially using the scanner as a camera, and took photos this way. But I haven’t seen any pictures from that method so it may just be another urban legend. Besides you would have to contend with trailing a cord and also I don’t know if the light bar would work in an upright position. Thanks for the link to the scan site.
2
Ellis Hollow
// Apr 5, 2007 at 6:20 am
There was an article in the NY Times a couple years ago about a woman who used this technique, but I don’t think it was Katinka (unless she’s seriously upgraded her website). This other woman (who I corresponded with for awhile) primarily scanned arrangements that ended up looking like old-fashioned pressed flower arrangements only with the vibrant colors and 3-D effects.
I tried a few then, and have always wanted to go back and do more. You simply arrange the flowers on the platen of a scanner and scan. You can put a black (or some other color) piece of cloth over the scanner or do it at night to get different background effects.
Try it. Fiddle around with it. It’s not as hard as it looks.
3
Tracy
// Apr 5, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Yes, like Ki and Ellis said, just put it on the platen and scan. Just don’t put the cover down. You can try it without a black cloth and may still get a black background - it depends on the scanner. I’m sure that Matson probably also touches up in Photoshop.
4 Ellis Hollow » Scanning flowers // Apr 5, 2007 at 6:47 pm
[...] flowersPosted April 5, 2007 This morning over at Cold Climate Gardening, Kathy posted about Katinka Matson’s scanned flower art. I first became aware of this [...]
5
Carol
// Apr 5, 2007 at 9:38 pm
These look neats. Let’s all try it!
6
Kathy Purdy
// Apr 6, 2007 at 6:48 am
Matson does mention a NYTimes article in the bibliography section of her bio page, but it’s not the same one that Ellis Hollow cites in his blog post.
7
Jane
// Apr 10, 2007 at 9:30 am
They’re beautiful. I’ve been messing around with scanning flowers for a few years, too, sporadically. The first time I ever did it, we were running an article on Japanese anemones in the UGJ but I had no photographs or illustrations to use, and this was well before digital cameras were affordable for the average person. I went outside, cut one down, plopped it on the scanner bed and crossed my fingers. It turned out pretty well. Necessity is the mother of invention.
8 Scanned snowdrops | Cold Climate Gardening // Apr 12, 2007 at 1:07 am
[...] people who commented on the Katinka Matson post encouraged me to try the technique of obtaining images of flowers by scanning them with a flatbed [...]
9 hot news|articles|tutorials :: The Beautiful Scanned snowdrops :: April :: 2007 // Apr 22, 2007 at 2:06 am
[...] people who commented on the Katinka Matson post encouraged me to try the technique of obtaining images of flowers by scanning them with a flatbed [...]
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