A couple of weeks ago, I had my model friend Lauren toss leaves in the air, while I photographed them (and her) with my Nimslo four-lens camera.
Here was the best shot of the day, as far as I was concerned.
I liked the way this image turned out. I really do. I actually thought about putting that image in the short pile for 2016.
Then I received a blog comment from someone named Mr. Brad Bartkus. Mr. Bartkus does not seem at all impressed with my choice of analogue equipment to capture this lenticular image. His comment to my original blog post is below.
Film??? Come on, really?
You’d be much better off doing this digitally. Four angles is really not enough for a decent 3d lenticular. I use a minimum of 12. You’d have more control shooting the elements separately and layering them out in Photoshop. Then you can bring the layered Photoshop file into After Effects and place the elements at very specific points in space. Making adjustments is super easy then as well.
Mr. Bartkus also added a link to his lenticular printing company. How con-VEEN-ient. Garnering free clickthrough links to his company website.
So…
I have to take this all under consideration. Mr. Bartkus simply offered his opinion on my photo and photographic concept. And in that vein, he is totally entitled to express his opinion. I encourage constructive dialogue in my blog.
But… even …
Yeah, I just can’t get past the comment “Film??? Come on, really?” As if I was some technology-fearing Luddite who could NEVER work in digital formats? Seriously?
See, I’ve crafted several lenticular and “magic motion” photos from digital constructs in the past. Fagbug and Vaudeville. Come to Hoffman’s Playland. Re-Lighting L-Ken’s. Those have worked out for me in the past. And last year, I tried a “magic motion” photo construct using my Kodak Medalist II film camera, the award-winning Vivaldi’s Pond.
And my goal with the Nimslo was to recover the old technology from this camera, to make it actually produce a photo that could translate into an analogue three-dimensional image, possibly something that could win a photographic award down the road. I tried a few shots here and there with this technique, photographing everything from llama heads to tree bark, and I thought Lauren and the Leaves had a really good shot of what I wanted to achieve.
But Mr. Bartkus… by suggesting that I would not be able to get a good lenticular print just from using film…. with a condescending, “Film??? Come on, really?” crack?
See, what Mr. Bartkus has done, whether he realized it or not, is that he challenged me. He tugged on my cape. He pulled my mask off. And by the spirit of Jim Croce, you don’t mess around with Chuck. Because although I am a mild-mannered man of the world most of the time, when provoked I’m badder than old King Kong and meaner than the Junkyard Dog.
Ask those who messed with Chuck in the past. If you can find them. Trust me, I know where the bodies are buried and I know where I left the shovels.
Okay. Training montage.
I went through the raw film scans of Lauren and the Leaves. I can set up this film print so that there are six images – images 1-2-3-4 are the original captures, with images 2-3 repeated so that there isn’t that jarring return to the first image. In other words, the leaves will suspend from left to right and back to left smoothly, just like in the animated GIF above.
Ten minutes after that initial “diss” from Mr. Bartkus about my choice of materials, I e-mailed the six frames of Lauren and the Leaves to one of my two lenticular printers of choice, Snapily Pro. Besides, the minimum print run for Mr. Bartkus’ company is 250 copies. I don’t have that many competitions for which I can enter this picture.
So in a couple of months, I will receive an 11×14 print of Lauren and the Leaves. And if it turns out well… then it gets entered in competition. If not, well, that just means I must continue trying.
The challenge is accepted.
Let’s rock.
Chuck The Writer 
Mr. Bartkus isn’t the brightest bulb in the pack, is he?
He may have thought he was getting free advertising, but with his condescending remarks, I highly doubt that any of your faithful readers will do business with such an obviously nasty man. Imagine what his customer service must be like? It’s probably about 1 notch above Rocky Mountain Film Labs.
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Really? I’m trying to help! I’ve been doing lenticular for over 20 years! I’ve figured out very efficient ways of creating it. I’ve done hundreds of DVD covers for Disney alone. Do what you want….I really don’t care either way. Struggle if you want.
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Good for you Chuck. The Nimslo is NOT the best camera in the world for anything. That doesn’t mean you can’t capture a great moment and make an interesting depth print from it. I have a Nimslo sitting on my desk and have been known to use it from time to time for fun. At the right distance you can get a very good parallax effect. I will warn you that the doubling and reordering of the frames to reduce the “jarring” effect of going back to the beginning is a good way to smooth out an animation. However, you are also introducing a pseudoscopic series of images so your print instead of “jarring” back to the beginning will now reverse it’s depth at those points. It would probably be better to tween in-between frames and make the sequence longer rather than try to reverse it’s direction. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck and if you would like a film print of your analogue sequence or if you are interested in another one-off lenticular service just drop me a line.
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The problem with film is just what your gifs are showing…very jumpy movement. It’s not a reflection of you….It’s the medium! I started out using film. You’d put it on a drum scanner. Then open it in Photoshop and try to get all the frames perfectly lined up by using the edge of the film. But you’d realize there wasn’t just alignment problems in one direction. It was just too flawed. I’m sorry you found my link annoying, but there are TONS of helpful articles there about lenticular. Including how to do a 3d photoshoot. I was offering you a link to helpful information. Small run lenticular really isn’t our “thing”. I wasn’t trying to win you as a customer, just help you as someone interested in lenticular. I also run the Lenticular group on LinkedIn. Lots of great connection there as well!!
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Brad – here’s the thing. I understand that there are limitations to creating lenticular film prints. However, my goal in the project was to make such a print happen with the Nimslo gear, in a way that I wouldn’t have to assemble everything from spots and pieces and bits and scans and put this piece here and move this piece there. For example, in the picture “Lauren and the Leaves,” you can see not only the leaves suspended in the air, but also the shadow of the leaves on Lauren’s blouse. As for alignment, instead of aligning with the edge of the film, I actually chose to align on Lauren’s face, so that she would be the “pivot point” that would show movement both in front and behind. I could have aligned on one of the leaves, but that would not have been a proper pivot point. Also, if you look at some of my other lenticular online prints, you can see that I’m trying to make images that aren’t just three-dimensional, but also magic-motion as well – my Vivaldi’s Pond print, for example, shows the changing of the seasons from one film photo to the next (and actually won a couple of awards in competition).
Perhaps in the end we shall have to agree to disagree on this. I just felt that although I do understand your impetus to suggest ideas here, it just seemed that my concept of an end product did not match yours.
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