Using a Camera Lens to Illustrate

January 6, 2012 8:24 PM

Don Hong-Oai (1929 - 2004), was a master of creating artwork which appeared to be Chinese ink illustrations, but were actually photographs. [gallery]

"He would create these images by taking three negatives, foreground, middle ground and far ground, and selecting a subject matter from each negative to form one composite image. All parts of the image do exist in life, but the photograph as a whole is an image that only existed in Don’s imagination. Each photograph is a unique handcrafted piece of work." [via]

posted by quin (18 comments total)

These are incredible.
posted by bayani at 8:42 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]

Beautiful stuff! Thanks.
posted by HuronBob at 8:49 PM on January 6

Lovely. So now we get to see the sort of scenes that inspired the ink illustrators in the first place!
posted by TreeRooster at 9:00 PM on January 6

Amazing. Simply beautiful. Thanks for finding this.
posted by gc at 9:01 PM on January 6

Nice! Thanks for this.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:35 PM on January 6

WOW.
posted by elphTeq at 9:42 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]

Gorgeous. Thanks!
posted by pernoctalian at 10:08 PM on January 6

This is insane.
posted by fnerg at 1:11 AM on January 7

The gibbons at 天子山 are nothing short of amazing.
posted by klue at 2:59 AM on January 7

So for those who really know this sort of thing, is this effect mostly accomplished in the camera - choosing the right film and exposure settings and light conditions etc. or is there a huge lab component, or do you have to be really be all about what you're doing in both the lab and the field?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:43 AM on January 7

The process is explained in the article:

He would create these images by taking three negatives, foreground, middle ground and far ground, and selecting a subject matter from each negative to form one composite image. All parts of the image do exist in life, but the photograph as a whole is an image that only existed in Don’s imagination.

Sort of a manual photoshop.
posted by tighttrousers at 6:58 AM on January 7

My understanding as someone who only associates with photographers is that this has to be happening at all levels of the process. I can't even begin to imagine the specifics.

This is incredible for so many reasons. The love he displays for these kinds of paintings is palpable and he seems to highlight the ways in which the traditional kinds of paintings simultaneously abstract and heighten reality. Someone who knows Chinese painting would never mistake these for one, but it's clear that he wasn't trying to trick the eye, but to pay homage to the economy of the traditional representations by highlighting the ways that he couldn't replicate them.

That, and they're a reminder that these kinds of landscapes actually exist in China, which is hard to wrap your mind around even once you've seen them.
posted by cmoj at 7:03 AM on January 7

These are beautiful. I saw this on Gizmodo yesterday and wanted to see more. Thanks for posting this.
posted by homunculus at 11:09 AM on January 7

I liked the one with the nice branches in the foreground.

Seriously though, very beautiful.
posted by captain cosine at 1:20 PM on January 7

This is fantastically lovely. Thanks for posting!
posted by clavier at 1:26 PM on January 7

Marvellous stuff.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:54 PM on January 7

These are spectacular, thanks!
posted by arcticseal at 11:58 PM on January 8

So for those who really know this sort of thing, is this effect mostly accomplished in the camera - choosing the right film and exposure settings and light conditions etc. or is there a huge lab component, or do you have to be really be all about what you're doing in both the lab and the field?

The latter, I believe, as in this would involve a fair amount of developing/scanning (if he processes his own negatives), colour correction, cropping and composition. All of this can be done analogue of course - it is simply (far) easier to make digital photocollages.

I'd like to know how he prints them - the paper and technique used. I suspect they are digitally printed, but I would like to know for sure. Anyone?

His style reminded me immediately of Seahyun Lee, whose paintings are impressive in person.
posted by beshtya at 1:26 AM on January 12