PUBLICATION CENTER

Ansen Seale uses 100-ft. roll of Absolute Backlit Film to display slit-scan photograph of river in San Antonio.

To display the gigantic print, Seale used electrical conduit to build 26 stands of different heights. He then placed the stands about four feet apart. Seale strung together fluorescent-lighting strips and hooked them onto the stands to provide the backlighting.

The slit-scan camera is a modified version of a panorama camera that rotates on a platform and methodically captures one pixel column at a time. For slit-scan photography, the motor controlling the rotation is disabled. As a result, the camera continues shooting a single sliver of space in rapid succession. Counter to classical photography, moving objects look blurry, and moving objects are rendered clearly.

In March of this year, Seale produced River of Light, a 100-ft. long backlit print that he displayed at Luminaria 2009: Arts Night in San Antonio. The image depicted water flowing over the unmoving rocks at the bottom of the San Antonio River. The stones at the bottom of the river appear as stripes, while the water flowing over them perturbs their static image, creating a kind of color-field painting. The reflection of the trees on the river’s edge added to the painting-like effects.

Instead of mirroring the world as we know it, Seale believes his camera records a hidden reality. He points out that the apparent "distortions" in the images all happen in-camera, as the image is being recorded.

"There is no Photoshop manipulation," says Seale. "These distortions could really be described as a more accurate way of seeing the passage of time, even though it may be contrary to our traditional concepts of the depiction of time and space in art. In other words, my camera is recording a reality that exists, but one that we cannot see without it."

The gigantic print, made from a 1.2 GB file, consumed an entire 42 in. x 100-ft. roll of LexJet’s 7-mil Absolute Backlit film. It was output on a Canon iPF8000 printer.

Displaying your images on backlit film can showcase the vibrant, rich colors and details of your work. For tips on printing on backlit film, call a LexJet account specialist at 888-873-7553.