Science

Science isn't surrogate art but offers imaginative stimulus, practical means and even new visual material to help art on its way.

A vision scientist, John Cupitt, and I are exploring links between image processing, photography and painting.

John wants to use paintings to drive the digital tone mapping you need to print a photograph well. For more click here.

I try to use an awareness of science to refresh observational landscape. Video clips below introduce some themes.

A method of digital mapping to help paint colour-textures evolved on site and in the studio.

For an introduction click here.

compression : mind the gap

Observational painting faces a fundamental problem in the gap between the huge dynamic range of colour our eyes see in nature and the much smaller range possible in a painted image.

Can an understanding of dynamic range compression, derived from neurology and computer science, help new nature painting?

HDR photography

High dynamic range photography (HDR) offers a new kind of source for painters. I am exploring possibilities for two images; one with broken illumination falling on discontinuous surfaces - dappled woodland, and one with a single illumination falling on a continuous surface - a still lake.

water moves at different speeds

The human visual system averages and resolves input between 0.05 and 0.1 second, inversely proportional to light level. This means that sometimes you can see shapes in moving water, and sometimes it's a blur, especially at dusk. Some of the paintings will explore this difference.