I recently did a blog post on my personal site about building a teleprompter from spare parts I gathered in the basement. It doesn’t really have anything to do with photography, which is why I put it on that site instead of this one. But since some photo people might also do some video work, here’s a link to it.

Well that was a hell of a lot of work.

I finished photography for the Ant Farm at the beginning of February, but that did not mean I was anywhere close to being done with the project. No, that’s when a whole other level of work kicked in.

But maybe I should back up a bit first and describe the process that was happening during the photography stage. Each of the 100 models was shot in either a horizontal or vertical set piece that helped me keep the proportions correct. I had everything set up so that the lights would be the same for each shot, ensuring a consistent appearance. (It also helped that I was doing everything very high-key, so there really wasn’t an issue with watching out for shadows.)

I jumped on the post-processing right after doing each shot rather than saving it all to the end. Not only did this keep my sanity by spreading this work out over a long period of time, but it helped me catch some set-up issues early on that I was able to correct. But still, this means that for each of the 100 models I had to:

1. Recruit and schedule, often involving quite a bit of back-and-forth emails.
2. Do the shoot, which usually was fairly quick.
3. Do the post-processing for that image.
4. Add that image to the overall grid. The more the grid was filled in, the trickier this became because a domino effect would kick in. I’d discover that the new image would look great in a particular spot, but that meant I had to move another, and the process would start all over again.

Once all 100 models were photographed I spent a couple weeks doing final arrangements to make sure each person was in the perfect spot. At the same time I was constructing the framework they would be standing on. This was a bit of a challenge because I know very little about creating and manipulating textures in Photoshop, so it took a while to come up with something that had the gritty, orangic look that was stuck in my head. This is something I could have keep tweaking for the next two years, but at one point I just had to call it done and move on.

My original plan was to just output the Ant Farm as a single-sheet print, which would have required using a professional print shop in order to get the size I wanted. This led me to start thinking if there was some way I could print it with my Epson 3800, even though its maximum print size of 17″x37″ falls far short of the 60″x45″ size of the image.

After a lot of experimenting, I decided to pursue a staggered, overlapping tiled design that is a slight tip-of-the-hat to the late James Rizzi. I divided the image into a series of about 35 panels, each with two to four models. I then worked through some small-scale mock-ups to find a series of vertical offsets that would work across the entire pieces.

Now that I had a game plan, it was time to move on to the construction portion. This entailed:

1. I isolated the separate panels from my primary Photoshop file and employed my finest Tetris skills to arrange as many as I could on each sheet of my expensive 17″x22″ Exhibition Fiber paper.
2. I proceeded to waste several sheets of paper while dealing with printing problems, which turned out to be the result of accidentally selecting the wrong paper profile in the Print dialog box.
3. When each sheet came out I hung it up in a safe place for 24 hours to give the ink sufficient time to dry. I have no idea if this is really necessary, but it makes me feel good.
4. After drying, each sheet gets two coatings of Hahnemuhle protective spray.
5. Once the spray is dry, each panel is carefully cut out using an X-Acto.
6. For each panel, I cut out a foam core backing that is the same shape as the panel but slightly smaller so it would not show.
7. I ran a black magic marker along the edge of each piece of foam core to help hide it even more. Ideally I would have just used black foam core, but when I went to buy it all the black sheets were annoying warped so I bought white and just dealt with it.
8. I spray mounted each panel to the foam core.
9. I defined four different heights of standoffs I would need to support the panels and decided to use styrofoam to keep the weight down. I bought a sheet of rigid styrofoam insulation and trimmed the blocks using a power scroll saw. This was extremely messy.
10. Meanwhile, I was also constructing the wood frame. Fortunately, it worked well to just use simple 1″x6″ boards and a sheet of plywood for the backing so the construction was rather simple. When building something like this, however, it’s very important to think ahead as to how it will be hung on the wall and work that into your design. I added a couple support pieces to the back that will bear most of the weight. A couple coats of flat black followed by a protective clear coat and it was ready to go.
11. I dry-fitted the panels several times to ensure that everything fit and looked good. Once I was satisfied, I glued everything in place. (The brevity of that last sentence does not convey how long this took. I spent several days glueing a few pieces at a time, letting them dry, then continuing.)
12. Once everything was secured I affixed a sheet of clear acrylic over the front and called it done!

Since you’ve been so nice and read to the end of this long post, I guess I’ll show you what it looks like:

Ha! Fooled you! The best you’re going to get now is this shot with the blue protective film still stuck on the plexi. I won’t be posting an unobscured image of the Ant Farm until it is debuted at SEAF in June 2012. In fact, I suggest you simply attend SEAF and see it in person!

(Update 1/14/2012: Yeah, it’s full. By the end of this coming week I will have shot all 100 ants. I’ll post a full recap soon.)

Maybe… but probably not.

I use a spreadsheet to keep track of all the models in the Ant Farm project; not only the ones I have already shot but also the ones that are scheduled and the people who have expressed interest but haven’t yet booked a date. I just noticed that all together, these now add up to an even 100 people, which is the capacity of the project.

So that means it’s full, right? Not necessarily.

Right now there are about 20 people who are in the category of having expressed interest but haven’t yet booked a date to do the photo. History tells me that not all of these people will end up in the project; schedules can be tough to coordinate, especially this time of the year. In all likelihood I will still be able to take some new people.

What I’m doing for now is putting any new people on a wait list. In the meantime I’m going to contact all the unscheduled people and ask them to try to set up a date with me by the end of the year (that is, by 12/31 tell me when you can do the photo, not necessarily do the photo by 12/31). After the first of the year, I’ll know how many spots I have open and I can start working my way through the wait list.

So, if you have previously told me you want to do a photo, please be in touch soon to set something up.

If you are new to all this, drop me a line and I’ll put you on the wait list.

When I first started setting up the Ant Farm project, I built the grid in a portrait orientation because… well… I don’t really know why I did that. It’s simply the way I started arranging the pieces and that’s how it got locked into my brain.

To provide myself with a large, almost-real-time representation of how the project is developing, I print out a low-res shot of each model and tape it to a large piece of foam core. This also gives me something to show to models when they first arrive so they can get a feel for what other people have done and how the project will ultimately look. Last night, however, something rather dramatic happened when I picked up the foam core to move it.

I accidentally rotated it 90 degrees.

In an instant I realized that the portrait orientation was completely wrong and that it needed to be landscape. This is one of those things that was so bloody obvious once I saw it, but it had not even crossed my mind until that moment. Yes, this meant that I instantly created about four hours of Photoshop work for myself to rearrange all the elements, but it was time well spent. Once I finished that the project simply looked better. It’s hard to explain why, but it just did.

I guess the point of this is to remind myself to occasionally step back and question why I’m doing things the way I am. Chances are there are decisions I made purely out of habit that should now be re-evaluated. Assume nothing; experiment often. And above all, don’t forget the valuable lesson the Brady kids taught us: