Recently, having invested in a more powerful computer with which to construct my digital pictures, I set about exploring both the increased complexity of the scenes I was able to build and the increased resolution at which I could render them.

As a complex subject I chose to model the plant Clematis Vitalba (aka Old Man’s Beard) with it’s delicate, barely visible seed heads. To explore what higher resolution had to offer I decided to try making larger prints (2m x 1.5m).

Modelling the plant proved to be quite a challenge especially when it came to the code used to create the coiling tendrils that surround the seed head. As the plant seen in its real setting tends to be quite ‘messy’ I ended up creating a number of fairly formal compositions centred on strands of bramble, that run from top to bottom of the image.

The results of experimenting with size proved to be much more of a surprise. For it seems that the experience of viewing a large image from the kind of distance at which it fills your visual field is quite different from looking at a smaller image printed at A4. Maybe as a consequence of the fact that the underlying subject is constructed in 3D, the perception of depth, even within the flat image, is very strong.

You have to see it to believe it