Are Fractals Art?
Shelly Nelson
fractals. I am interested primarily in visual images. I have found
numerous discussions of fractals in connection with art. Art Forum Oct.
1990 has an interesting discussion of Chaos theory. Numerous authors such
as Benoit Mandelbrot and James Gleick make comparisons between fractals and
various styles of art. I have also found the reactions of individuals who
would not consider fractals to be art. I am interested in what the people
who read this newsgroup think about fractals as art. Please email me or
post your response (whichever you prefer) to the question:
Do you consider fractals to be art? Why or why not?
Shelly
nel...@plains.NoDak.edu
_/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\__/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_
"It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternally present.
It is the mother of the universe." - Tao Te Ching
L. Mitchell
>
> Do you consider fractals to be art? Why or why not?
>
>Shelly
>nel...@plains.NoDak.edu
Fractals, like any other image, *can be* art. As an artist, I believe that
what makes an image art is whether or not the artist is attempting to
express themselves through the medium. I use computers and fractals to
express myself artisticly, so I in my case, fractals are art.
(Shameless plug) Anyone interested in fractals as art can send for samples
of my fractal art notecards. Send $5 for 4 to: Creative Imagery, PO Box
8131, Hampton, VA 23666 (USA). Include $2 for disk-based catalog of other
fractal cards (requires MS-DOS compatible computer & VGA display).
Kerry Mitchell
The Graphical Gnome
> Do you consider fractals to be art? Why or why not?
>Shelly
Hai Shelly,
The question you ask is very interesting. IMHO it is art. The only problem
with defining factals as art, is that they can be reproduced without loss of
"value". It is an artform that will never make money, but just pleasing
for the eye. And I think art should only be the last, so fractals is art.
Happy Hacking "PABRAS"
(aka The Graphical Gnome)
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Peter Couvares
>fractals. I am interested primarily in visual images. I have found
>numerous discussions of fractals in connection with art. Art Forum Oct.
>1990 has an interesting discussion of Chaos theory. Numerous authors such
>as Benoit Mandelbrot and James Gleick make comparisons between fractals and
>various styles of art. I have also found the reactions of individuals who
>would not consider fractals to be art. I am interested in what the people
>who read this newsgroup think about fractals as art. Please email me or
>post your response (whichever you prefer) to the question:
>
> Do you consider fractals to be art? Why or why not?
My primary interest in fractals is aesthetic, although the more math
I learn, the more interesting they become in that way. The great thing about
fractals to me is the way in which you see patterns that appear across many
fractal types. Patterns isn't even the right word, because often the images
are very different--but after exploring fractals for about a year I've
learned to anticipate much of what I find. The wonderful part of this for
me, now that I have some idea of these similarities, is finding things that
buck the patterns, that don't fit right...recently I found an image that
seems to be a Mandelbrot in which the upper half has enveloped the lower half,
something I've never seen anything like before...but once I looked at it, I
could see how it happened...not mathematically, but just in terms of seeing
how the pattern was manipulated into this new shape while still maintaining
the qualities of the "original" Mandelbrot.
Not knowing much of the math, fractals are probably much different
to me than they are to many of the people reading this newsgroup because I
don't see them in the same way. I may be full of shit, but I think that
even without the math, it is possible to see a lot of the mathematic qualities
of fractals, just by examining the "patterns" (I wish I could think of a
better word describing the "order" within them). Anyway, I'm curious to see
what other people with an understanding of the math think of fractals as art.
-Peter Couvares
pfco...@amhux1.amherst.edu
hs...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
[deleted]
>
> Do you consider fractals to be art? Why or why not?
>
Speaking for no-one but me, I'd say that the graphical representation of
fractals is definitely Art, for two main reasons:
1) Art is supposed to reflect the world around us - so do many
fractals, and they go further, by supplying images of worlds
not previously conceived by Art (which may be the source of
dissent, since many artists of my acquaintance do not consider
anything derived from 'science' to be Art).
2) Other graphical representations have been considered Art - for
example, false-colour electron micrographs of micro-organisms,
tissue, and the like, or UV photographs of subjects such as
flowers.
Others may/doubtless will have differing views.
On the other hand, one might circumvent the question entirely by saying that
everything is Art :-)...
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Peter G. Q. Brooks HS...@UK.AC.OX.VAX | The boy stood on the burning deck |
| Health Services Research Unit | Whence all but he had fled. |
| Dept of Public Health & Primary Care | Twit. |
| University of Oxford | Spike Millington, Goon and Musician |
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
Bob Martino
>For a humanities project I am doing a paper on the aesthetic value of
>fractals. I am interested primarily in visual images. I have found
>numerous discussions of fractals in connection with art. Art Forum Oct.
>1990 has an interesting discussion of Chaos theory. Numerous authors such
>as Benoit Mandelbrot and James Gleick make comparisons between fractals and
>various styles of art. I have also found the reactions of individuals who
>would not consider fractals to be art. I am interested in what the people
>who read this newsgroup think about fractals as art. Please email me or
>post your response (whichever you prefer) to the question:
>
> Do you consider fractals to be art? Why or why not?
>
>Shelly
>
Define "art", Shelly.
Really, I'm not being pedantic. If art is the act of creating
something, then a person who writes a computer program to draw
a fractal is doing "art."
I'm currently going through some independent studies in chaos
and fractals as my last few math credits before I graduate in
June (YESSsssss...!) and a lot of it involves my writing of computer
programs. Believe me, I am putting a LOT of creativity into them,
and they are *NOTHING* compared to the complex programs which
create the beautiful, full-color images you see in books. Indeed,
the colors themselves are very arbitrary, so there's another way
someone's creativity comes in.
Is math itself "art?" More complicated question. I do know
there's a lot of creativity in some mathematical proofs. Maybe
someday we can have our own gallery in New York.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
! That Bob Martino Guy ! "I think, therefore I am." !
! bmar...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu ! -Descartes !
! ! "I am that I am." !
! God INVENTED science. So there. ! -God !
! ^^^^^^^^ ! "I am a jelly dougnut." !
! ! -J.F. Kennedy !
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jos Stam
> Do you consider fractals to be art? Why or why not?
Keep in mind that the first pictures of fractals (i.e. Mandelbrot set and
Julia sets) were produced in the goal to "visualize" the dynamics of the
iteration of a mathematical function. Hence the motivation was purely
scientific and not artistic. Because the process of visualizing involves
making a choice of colours (to get good looking pictures) there is a
subjective element to these pictures, and hence they can be considered as
art. But do you consider the tiles in your kitchen as art, just because it
looks good? Now you can reverse the process, an artist in order to produce
a certain class of pictures seeks an algorithmic way to generate them. In
this case there is an intent (or "message") involved. I would consider this
more artistic than the former. Artists can use fractal imagery in their
art as Pop artists used commercial imagery (e.g., the soup cans of Warhol).
My opinion? I consider visualizations of fractals aesthetically pleasing
but consider them as trivial art. If the intent is not to visualize, but
fractals are used because they are essential to expressing that intent,
then I would call it art. Personally I haven't seen any convincing examples
of the latter. The problem of trying to bridge science and art is that it
either results in trivialized art or in trivialized science. This however
shouldn't stop artists and scientists from trying to bridge the gap...
cheers,
Jos
Jeremy Frank
Not being a "real" artist, you'll have to take this with a boulder of
salt, but I'd say that fractals are art as well. The only real drawback
I have to saying that is that I try to consider art as something fun to
do, not as a creative expression of myself; and believe me, when the
complex arithmetic produces something bizarre or the makefile decides
to much all my sources and erase everything, programming fractals is
a real bitch.
To become more analytical, consider the following definitions of art.
If it's something that's supposed to portray nature in an abstract way,
then yes, it's art. (Barnsley) If it's supposed to be an expression of
the self, then it's art. (OK, so my self is an iterative complex function,
sorry!) If it's supposed to be a pretty thing to hang on the walls of
your room, sure it's art.
JJ
Ken Shirriff
I consider some fractals to be "art" and some fractals not to be "art".
My pragmatic personal opinion is that if someone calls something "art" then it
is art. Arguments about "Is X art?" seem really passe', and they always seem
to be answered in the affirmative, so they might as well be skipped. Fractals
have as much "right" to be art as Brillo pads (Warhol), a urinal (Duchamp),
a black canvas (Rothko?), a photograph of a mountain (Adams), or an island
wrapped in plastic (Christo). And, like those things in different contexts,
fractals can also not be art.
So, IMHO if someone generates a fractal to study its behavior, then it's not
"art". If someone generates a fractal and calls it "art" then it's "art".
(Of course, it could be arbitrarily bad art.)
Ken Shirriff shir...@sprite.Berkeley.EDU
Randall D. Tobias
Not really an answer, but two observations.
The Mandelbrot set (as well as all the little fractals that go the
table 'round) is a mathematical crystal, if you will. A hunk of quartz
is pretty to look at; certain modern sects even worship them. But is
it art?
And another thing: I was in a museum a couple of months ago and saw a
clay sculpture of an old boot. At least, the accompanying plaque
*said* it was a sculpture: to my cretin eyes, it looked a twin (or
triplet, I guess) of the two I was wearing at the moment. Seems to me
to be the exact opposite of the M-set---definitely created, but in no
way distinctive, "pretty". Was it art?
The pragmatic answer: art is what people *pay for* as art. I've bought
fractal programs just for the pleasure of looking at the results, so
maybe that makes it art for me.
--
Randy Tobias SAS Institute Inc. (919) 677-8000 x7933
sas...@dev.sas.com SAS Circle (919) 677-8224 (Fax)
72450...@compuserve.com Cary, NC 27512-8000
... just my $(-exp(2*sqrt(-1)*arcos(0))/(((2**(2 + 1)) - 1)**2 + 1)).
Gerald Edgar
There's a tree in my back yard. Is that art? Is the Mandelbrot set
any less a natural object than the tree?
--
Gerald A. Edgar Internet: ed...@mps.ohio-state.edu
Department of Mathematics Bitnet: EDGAR@OHSTPY
The Ohio State University telephone: 614-292-0395 (Office)
Columbus, OH 43210 -292-4975 (Math. Dept.) -292-1479 (Dept. Fax)
Nicholas Wilt
>
>There's a tree in my back yard. Is that art? Is the Mandelbrot set
>any less a natural object than the tree?
Not fair. Sculpture is composed of materials that preceded their shaping,
and at least one sculptor has described his work as "uncovering what was
already there." (I've heard this attributed to a number of different
sculptors, including the guy that carved Mt. Rushmore.)
Although the Mandelbrot set is a natural object, it takes artistic
discrimination to decide which portion of the set to magnify, what
how many iterations to apply, and what colors the CLUT should contain.
>--
> Gerald A. Edgar Internet: ed...@mps.ohio-state.edu
> Department of Mathematics Bitnet: EDGAR@OHSTPY
> The Ohio State University telephone: 614-292-0395 (Office)
> Columbus, OH 43210 -292-4975 (Math. Dept.) -292-1479 (Dept. Fax)
--Nicholas Wilt
n...@coos.dartmouth.edu
Karthik P Sheka
>In article <1992Apr27.2...@zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu> ed...@function.mps.ohio-state.edu (Gerald Edgar) writes:
>>
>>There's a tree in my back yard. Is that art? Is the Mandelbrot set
>>any less a natural object than the tree?
>
>Not fair. Sculpture is composed of materials that preceded their shaping,
>and at least one sculptor has described his work as "uncovering what was
>already there." (I've heard this attributed to a number of different
>sculptors, including the guy that carved Mt. Rushmore.)
>
>Although the Mandelbrot set is a natural object, it takes artistic
>discrimination to decide which portion of the set to magnify, what
>how many iterations to apply, and what colors the CLUT should contain.
Does it? I thought it was obvious at first, but...
What if somewhat wrote a program that would do a low level scan of
the entire M set, and then magnify on parts that changed color very fast?
And did this recursively? What if the program also had an algorithm that
would increase the iterations that it would apply, as it magnified, so that
it always "caught" most of the M set boundary? And what if this program
chose the color set to view the fractal in as a function of the number of
discrete levels in the zoomed in part of the set?
Would this be art? A program that did this would be a little
difficult to write, but it is not computationally difficult. Would a
picture generated by this program be concidered art? Does art need a human
concience behind it?
And if this isn't art, does that mean that the same image, when
generated by a person, is not art either?
(Just playing devil's advocate here. I believe that the M set, and a tree,
are both art. It shouldn't really matter how a piece is created, just how
it interacts with the viewer.)
Karthik Sheka
k...@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
Nicholas Wilt
> What if somewhat wrote a program that would do a low level scan of
>the entire M set, and then magnify on parts that changed color very fast?
>And did this recursively? What if the program also had an algorithm that
>would increase the iterations that it would apply, as it magnified, so that
>it always "caught" most of the M set boundary? And what if this program
>chose the color set to view the fractal in as a function of the number of
>discrete levels in the zoomed in part of the set?
> Would this be art? A program that did this would be a little
>difficult to write, but it is not computationally difficult. Would a
>picture generated by this program be concidered art? Does art need a human
>concience behind it?
Until we have artificial intelligences capable of writing such programs,
the human that wrote the program is clearly the conscience behind those
program-generated images. The human is the one that decided how to
parameterize the program's decisions on where and how to zoom. (Whenif
such AI's come about, this art debate will be the least significant issue
to discuss...:-)
>Karthik Sheka
>k...@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
--Nick
n...@coos.dartmouth.edu
Tord Malmgren
>> Do you consider fractals to be art? Why or why not?
>I consider some fractals to be "art" and some fractals not to be "art".
>My pragmatic personal opinion is that if someone calls something "art" then it
>is art. Arguments about "Is X art?" seem really passe', and they always seem
>to be answered in the affirmative, so they might as well be skipped. Fractals
>have as much "right" to be art as Brillo pads (Warhol), a urinal (Duchamp),
>a black canvas (Rothko?), a photograph of a mountain (Adams), or an island
>wrapped in plastic (Christo). And, like those things in different contexts,
>fractals can also not be art.
>So, IMHO if someone generates a fractal to study its behavior, then it's not
>"art". If someone generates a fractal and calls it "art" then it's "art".
>(Of course, it could be arbitrarily bad art.)
In Sweden there's this dude by the name of Dan Wolgers who hired a
commercial company to do some works for him, and they did, and he
bought it, and put his name on it, and then he put it in an exhibition..
is this art? of course it is, but he refuses to call it anything, and
he doesn't claim himself to be an artist, though some call him that,
and some don't... Anything and nothing is art, art *Is*
---------------+--------------------------------
Tord Malmgren | Internet: to...@vand.physto.se | These opinions are my own,
| BITnet : TO...@SESUF51.BITNET | and NOT of this department!
---------------+--------------------------------
Department of Physics, University of Stockholm
Shelly Nelson
> Define "art", Shelly.
Good question.
I am not an artist and I have not studied art extensively and like many
people I often view art as a very subjective thing. There are however some
more objective ways to look at art then considering art to be anything that
one likes. In my readings for my current project I have discovered many
theories that attempt to define art. Plato and Aristotle say art is
"imitation". Tolstoy defines art as a form of communication between artist
and audience and art therefore must have comprehensible subject matter.
Other theories of art stress expression and form. While none of the
theories provide an all encompassing definition, they provide some basic
definitions.
My advisor for this project has been studying philosophy and art longer than
most of the readers of this group have been alive. She lists the following
criteria which art, both poetry and visual art must meet. Art must have
rhythm, variation, repetition, unity (art must be complete within itself),
color, line, spatial relations, and texture. Rather than taking a view that
art can be anything, these criteria may provide a means to more objectively
evaluate art.
> Is math itself "art?" More complicated question. I do know
>there's a lot of creativity in some mathematical proofs. Maybe
>someday we can have our own gallery in New York.
>
Mathematical proofs may be creative but that does not necessarily make them
art.
In my opinion, many visual images of the Mandelbrot set meet the criteria
neecessary for art. Sometimes symmetry and repetition seem to overpower the
variations. In terms of subject matter, I think that there is a certain
contemplation of infinity expressed in many fractal images. There is also
the abstract representation of natural objects.
Shelly
nel...@plains.NoDak.edu
_/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_
Gerald Edgar
>> Is math itself "art?"
From one of John Brunner's futuristic novels: "Mathematics became one
of the popular performing arts..."
Timothy Wegner
There is a helpful analogy between photography and fractals. At the beginning
of photography, the prevailing opinion was that photograpy could not be art;
after all, you just point the camera and snap the shutter and don't need any
skill. Today most people recognise that photography is indeed art when the
camera is in the hands of a skillful person. But most casual snapshots hardly
rank with Eliot Porter's work or Ansel Adams Yosemite shots. Similarly, a
beginner with a fractal program is very excited to make Mandelbrot images, just
as a snapshooting beginner enjoys his or her photos. But with experience it
is possible to become much more discerning.
I receive regular phone calls from the fanatic fractint user Lee Skinner, whose
work graces the poster and cover of the book Fractal Creations. Lee will invent
new formulas with Fractint's parser, spend 6 months exploring *one* formula,
and spend hours tweaking the colors of *each*image. When you consider that at
the scale of the maximum zoom depth Lee is exploring an area roughly the size
of the orbit of Jupiter, and when you consider the astronomical number of
possible color palettes that can be built using the VGA's 18 bits and 256
colors, then you can see the enormous degree of freedom available to the fractal
artist. Lee sent me 250 images made with the formula z^e+C. Because of the
discontinuity inherent in that image, there is an enormous variety of shapes
and pattern available from that one formula. Twenty different people exploring
that formula would come up with twenty different themes of shapes and color.
It is hard for me to imagine that anyone could view Lee's images and not
understand it was art. All I can say is that if Lee's work is not art, than
neither is Ansel Adams' photography.
--
Tim Wegner Fractint co-author
Internet: twe...@mwunix.mitre.org Compuserve: 7132...@compuserve.com
Benjamin H. Henry
>nel...@plains.NoDak.edu (Shelly Nelson) writes:
>The question you ask is very interesting. IMHO it is art. The only problem
>with defining factals as art, is that they can be reproduced without loss of
>"value". It is an artform that will never make money, but just pleasing
>for the eye. And I think art should only be the last, so fractals is art.
I disagree with this statement. An artist can use the computer and
a graphical tool such as Fractint to create "art". These works
of artcan be extremely involved, metaphorical, and complicated. And
these are not easily "reproduced without loss of 'value.'"
And as an wxample of making money, I saw a calendar of fractal art
that was really quite interesting and beautiful just over break.
-----
--
Benjamin H. Henry bh4...@albnyvms.bitnet
Albany, NY bh4...@rachel.albany.edu
hen...@logic.camp.clarkson.edu
Somehow it may get to me. hen...@craft.camp.clarkson.edu
The Anarch
>
>From one of John Brunner's futuristic novels: "Mathematics became one
>of the popular performing arts..."
Interesting--in centuries past, mathematics was a subject of public
display. Prominent mathematicians would hold contests in which they would
pose problems to one another, such as solving Diophantine equations, finding
roots, etc. It was more like sport than performing art, but I'm sure that
contestants' efforts were appreciated for their aesthetics--elegance,
subtlety, originality--as well as for their results, just as we may
appreciate the grace of any physical athlete. For more on this, see
rec.org.sca.
--
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-...@bonaire.dartmouth.edu-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
"The Walpurgisnacht has become synonomous with any general revelry, and
particularly for the breaking out of demonic lewdness and disorder."
D I S C L A I M E R : E V E R Y T H I N G I W R I T E I S F A L S E
Louie
> display. Prominent mathematicians would hold contests in which they would
> pose problems to one another, such as solving Diophantine equations, finding
> roots, etc. It was more like sport than performing art, but I'm sure that
> contestants' efforts were appreciated for their aesthetics--elegance,
> subtlety, originality--as well as for their results, just as we may
> appreciate the grace of any physical athlete. For more on this, see
> rec.org.sca.
In the past Mathimetians used to hide their finding as well, so
they could win at these contests. If one found a way to do something
others couldn't do, or couldn't do quickly, they would hide that
advancement for their own gain.
Mathimatians don't hide things anymore, well, not as basic
practice. Unless you can show how you arrived at your answer, people
really don't believe you, and nor should they if you can't show how you
came up with an answer.
-:Louie
---------------------------------------------------------------------
lo...@toz.buffalo.ny.us (Louie)
-- Change this!
The Graphical Gnome
>r...@ktibv.uucp (The Graphical Gnome) writes:
>>nel...@plains.NoDak.edu (Shelly Nelson) writes:
>>The question you ask is very interesting. IMHO it is art. The only problem
>>with defining factals as art, is that they can be reproduced without loss of
>>"value". It is an artform that will never make money, but just pleasing
>>for the eye. And I think art should only be the last, so fractals is art.
>I disagree with this statement. An artist can use the computer and
>a graphical tool such as Fractint to create "art". These works
>of artcan be extremely involved, metaphorical, and complicated. And
>these are not easily "reproduced without loss of 'value.'"
By not making money, i didn't think of the pennymoney you can make with
calenders etc. I was thinking of the $10^6 that are paid for paintings.
The qestion was btw not about fractint but about the "simple" mandelbrot set.
if the coordinates and pallete are known you CAN reproduce them. I agree
for complex pictures, my statement does not hold.
The Graphical Gnome
Piers L C Haken
this means that somehow they deserve the classification of 'art' (whatever
that may be). What about the relative 'beauty' of different types of
fractals? This field's getting on a bit now, but still people are devising
new things to try...
'what about Z(n+1)=f(Z(n))= blah....' etc...
but somehow (IMHO) the more complex f is (or any type of fractal generating
algorithm, for that matter) the less 'natural' it seems. I still think that
the Mandelbrot set (and it's associated quadratic Julia sets) are some of
the most naturally beautiful examples of 'art' around. Maybe it's just
because they're so simple and yet so complex. What do you think?
Piers.
Todd Lehman
Has anyone dealt with unusually large renderings of the M-Set (or another
fractal)? I very much want to see a 16' x 12' rendering hanging on the wall
of a museum like the San Francisco Exploratorium. (At 300 dpi, that would
only be 2.5 billion pixels ;-)
I once made a 12'-long picture of the logistic equation x |-> Bx(1-x) with
a dot-matrix printer on continuous feed paper, and it looked pretty good, but
the problem was I could never find enough wall space for it. :-\
What would the 60's have been like with fractals? Blacklight Julia sets
covering your ceiling? Hmm...makes me wanna fire up FractInt color-cycling
and bake some hash brownies... :)
--
Todd Lehman
to...@county.lmt.mn.org
[Sorry if you got this twice -- I tried to post this a week ago but it didn't
show up here so I assumed it didn't fly and am reposting it now.]
NOEL
>fractal)? I very much want to see a 16' x 12' rendering hanging on the wall
>of a museum like the San Francisco Exploratorium. (At 300 dpi, that would
>only be 2.5 billion pixels ;-)
>
>I once made a 12'-long picture of the logistic equation x |-> Bx(1-x) with
>a dot-matrix printer on continuous feed paper, and it looked pretty good, but
>the problem was I could never find enough wall space for it. :-\
>
I have made a series of fairly large fractals about 2 feet X 3 feet
made as a photo collage from 4X4 and 5X5 sets of colour 4" x 6" prints.
I had a batch process that would take an image and subdivide it into
a matrix of images. Each image was 640 X 512 pixels so the total resolution
for a 5 X 5 matrix was 3200 x 2560 or 11,192,000 pixels with a maxiter
of 1024 / pixel. They each took about a week on a microvax 3400 so if
your contemplating something grander then this you had better have lots of
time and/or lots of speed to throw at it. I have also started playing
with 8" x 11" prints taken at 1024 x 768 resolution. The image quality
is good, but the price of a set of 8 x 11's is prohibitive. If your going
to try taking photo's off a screen then I can give some tips. Get a
Macro telephoto lens and keep the image angle as small as possible as this
will reduce pincushion distortion. Get a good tripod and cable release.
Use a slow shutter speed to capture the whole scan. It has to be slower
than your vertical refresh rate. About an 1/8 second works well with
100 asa colour film and f5.6 aperture on a normal brightness monitor.
Take photo's in a completely darkened room. Use a flat screen monitor if
you can. When your getting a series for a collage make sure that they
all have the same aperture and shutter speed. Don't move the camera
between shots. Tell the lab that you want all prints produced at the same
settings and turn off the auto colour balance as this will throw off
the colour saturation from one to the next if the colours vary a lot over
the whole fractal. To produce a collage, you have to trim each print down
to the image edges. These have to be square or they won't fit together.
If there is too much distortion from the monitor you will loose data
at the edges and things won't line up very well. You can mount the photo's
on standard sheet of foam-core board from an art supply shop. Use a good
spray adhesive. Spray the photo back not the board. Use rubber gloves
at all times to avoid fingerprints and clean the photo-surface of any
stray marks with lighter fluid. It is a hell of a lot of work to even
make prints at this moderate size. I have made about a half dozen
with a few more in the works. The end result, if produced thoughtfully
and carefully, I would call art. At least they are hanging on my walls.