Virtually Blowing Up

The images you’re going to see were shot with a camera, but not a film camera and not a digital camera. The “camera” we’re talking about is a virtual one and nothing in the frame is actually real. These don’t look like the computer generated images I’m used to seeing either, I was totally fooled! Digital artist Shamus Clisset tells us about the process and inspiration behind his beautiful series of fine-art images titled “Manifestations/Geysers.” 

Produced by Liman Cheng. 

Tell us a little bit about your background and what you do.

My background is actually in painting. I got my BFA in painting from the College of Santa Fe, in New Mexico, in 1998. My work at the time was all about notions of reification -  the tendency to sort of mentally treat abstract concepts as concrete objects. I had been studying a lot of philosophy and art history and my work was satirizing the tendency in those traditions to raise these mental constructs to a level of extreme importance, and critiquing how that carries over to the contemporary art world in various ways. I moved to Berlin in 1999 and I kept developing along those lines during the 2 years I lived there. Berlin is where I really got hooked on the conceptual possibilities of digital media. I got really into the idea that creating something on the computer was analogous to building something purely with the mind. There are no materials like paint or canvas or paper, the image exists only as an image. I moved to New York in 2001 and after several years of experimenting in various directions along those general lines I’ve landed on using 3D modeling and rendering as my main medium of choice. Now my work is to build every element of the image – every object, light, and material that you see pictured – inside this non-material, digital space. I am also a master printer at Laumont Digital in New York, imaging and producing c-prints for a number of brilliant photographers. The work involves a lot of high-end Photoshop, which has technically shown me how to make better images and honed my skills.

Does your “Manifestations/Geysers” work incorporates 3D imagery with photography?

There is no traditional camera photography involved in the process. But there is a virtual camera involved, which you control in order to get the image you want. You adjust f/stop, exposure duration, lens distance, film size—basically everything that you control in a real camera, but without the actual camera. The images are created using physically accurate light simulation software that produces very photo-real imagery.

What software program did you use?

The main software used for the geysers were Indigo Renderer and Blender 3D. Blender is an open source project and Indigo is one of a few programs based on an open-source project called Physically-Based Ray Tracing. Indigo is not free, but it is one of the better and still more affordable ones out there.

Can you take us through how you created these images?

In addition to the 3D renderer, these “geysers” rely on another piece of software which simulates fluid dynamics. The initial parameters of the fluid are set according to the scene and the simulation produces a series of models based on how the fluids behave in real life. The fluid models are then manipulated and incorporated with other objects and virtual lights to produce the images you see using the rendering software. My use of the geyser as subject has mainly to do with the nature of the digital images springing forth from a void and inhabiting this ambiguous virtual space. They also tend to be a bit sinister in their symbolism and I mean to evoke something of a personality in each one, almost as ghostly apparitions drawn forth from their potential digital world – in a sense the images are conjured up rather than explicitly built, hence the subtitle “manifestations”

How long did it take to create one image?

For me, creating one image is a long process of fine-tuning. Depending on the image, I spent several days to several weeks adjusting lights, materials, shapes, composition…basically everything. Creating one element in the image is a relatively easy thing, but since you are building and controlling every characteristic of everything you see in the image, the possibilities are endless. It’s a lot of testing and tweaking. Then the final hi-res render can take a long time, up to a week in some cases – the larger the image and more complex your scene, the longer it takes to render.

How can commercial and fine art photographers apply 3D effects to their work? Can you give us an example?

There are numerous ways photographers can employ 3D tools in their work. Most 3D software is at least partly designed to aid in compositing virtual objects into conventional photographs. Lighting and scale can be controlled to match pre-existing photos and elements of the scene can be isolated for compositing using alpha channels generated by the 3D application. HDR images can also be used to illuminate entire scenes, producing stunningly real lighting and reflections of the virtual environment. I think a lot of people associate 3D with movie effects and animation that still tends to have a very digital look. These physically-based programs produce much more accurate lighting, shadows and reflections than the software used for film effects (at the cost of much longer computational times). But when used skillfully, it is nearly impossible to distinguish these simulated images from a true photograph. Another popular use for these 3D programs is pre-visualization of computer-designed products and architectural models. This allows clients to see a very real representation of their designs before they are actually produced. From a fine art perspective, I think the potential for these techniques is vast. Conceptually, the surface has hardly been scratched. I think as the technology evolves and user friendliness improves for these programs it could open up a lot of new creative possibilities for photographers, painters, and sculptors alike.