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Tag Archives: Diorama

Entreentre Presents Works by Nat Chard and Perry Kulper, and Teis Draiby

March 8, 2015
Exhibitions
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Instrument Eight, Perry Kulper's Drawing

Instrument Eight, Perry Kulper’s Drawing

Instrument Eight, Nat Chard's Drawing

Instrument Eight, Nat Chard’s Drawing

Back of Perry's Instrument

Back of Perry’s Instrument

Outside of Leth and Gori Gallery

Outside of Leth and Gori Gallery

Bog cameras with Bog Diorama photographs

Bog cameras with Bog Diorama photographs

Teis Draiby scanning photographs with camera

Teis Draiby scanning photographs with camera

Teis Draiby scanning photographs - detail

Teis Draiby scanning photographs – detail

Teis Draiby scanning photographs detail

Teis Draiby scanning photographs detail

Bog cameras, photographs and Instrument Eight photographs, Nat Chard

Bog cameras, photographs and Instrument Eight photographs, Nat Chard

A few snaps of a current exhibition in Copenhagen during set-up. The gallery is the front room of an architecture practice – Leth and Gori in Vesterbro – Absalonsgade 21B, 1658 Copenhagen V. It is on until April the 10th. It is the first of a series of exhibitions set up by Entreentre who will also publish a series of booklets on the work. Entreentre’s website will go online on April the 10th.

These were taken just as we installed the instruments – I will post some others of the thing completed when I get them.

White Rhino and Paradoxical Shadows

May 28, 2014
Dioramas, Paradoxical Shadows
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White Rhino Diorama at the American Museum of Natural History

White Rhino Diorama at the American Museum of Natural History

I have posted a photograph of the White Rhinoceros group at the American Museum of Natural History before (in stereo, if I remember correctly). The 1937 diorama has a fine background painting by James Perry Wilson. It is located in a corner of the mezzanine level of the  Akeley Hall of African of Mammals in a corner with a low ceiling (which wilson tries to disguise with heavy rain clouds). To fit the  two large White Rhinos in the tight space without them standing too close to the observer, one is located very close to the painted background. To help mitigate against a shadow on the background (which would collapse the illusion of depth) apparently the hidden side of the Rhino is painted white. This possibility of negating one’s shadow has been teasing me recently and will be part of the new instrument I am working on.

Anamorphic Buffalo

March 28, 2014
Dioramas
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Buffalo Diorama

Buffalo Diorama

Buffalo Diorama

Buffalo Diorama

Buffalo Diorama

Buffalo Diorama

The Buffalo group at the American Museum of Natural History is not my favourite J.P. Wilson Diorama but there is a treat if you look inside the return on the far right hand side (top image) where a buffalo painted on the background crosses between the far right hand edge of the background and the painted section of the return to the viewing window. The  part of the animal on the background is painted normally but on the return it is painted anamorphically. Pictures from inside the diorama reveal a pot bellied buffalo, at least on its left hand side, to compensate for the viewing angle. The furthest away part of the buffalo is painted on the surface closest to the observer.

By the way, note that the horizon is not adjusted anamorphically on the return – perhaps because the viewing window is so wide that it is hard to know where to imagine the observer’s eye?.

 

Los Angeles Dioramas

January 9, 2013
Dioramas
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Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

A couple more dioramas from the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles.

As before, the difference between viewing the single image and seeing them in 3D is illuminating. Although not as accomplished as the best work at the American Museum of Natural History, there are quite a few good dioramas in LA.

See the previous post for suggestions on how to view in stereo, or use the Jason Robbins method – which I tried yesterday and have to say works really well – of putting your nose right up to the divide between the two images and move back until the image is in focus.

In either method you will see three images – concentrate on the middle one.

 

 

Cold Bog Diorama

April 23, 2012
Bog Camera, Dioramas
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Cold Bog Diorama

While I was digging out the photographs of the Big Horn Sheep diorama I came across this pair I took of the Cold Bog Diorama, also at the Yale Peabody Museum  (also by James Perry Wilson). You can see more about this diorama here and here. In the second of these links is an assembly of Wilson’s survey slides. Here (below) is the same assembly done in Bridge/Photoshop, somewhat dissolving the frames and compensating for the faceted picture plane as Wilson’s Dual Grid method would.

Cold Bog Diorama survey

See two posts below for advice on viewing stereoscopic pairs (for the top image).

Big Horn Sheep side view

April 22, 2012
Dioramascope
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Big Horn Sheep side view

This is the view I mentioned in the previous post. It is hard to see the form of the diorama shell. It curves towards the viewer quite gently on the left, where it is closer to the viewer, and sharply to the right where it is further away. The pictorial information suggests almost the opposite, so your consciousness is struggling with the assembly. There is a similar problem with the floating shadows from instrument six, which do things that shadows are not supposed to do. We believe shadows so implicitly that we try and put them back where they should be, even though we perceive them to be floating in space.

Usual process for resolving the stereoscopic image (See the post below if you are new to the blog).