Perhaps you've heard of innovative artists picking up a Playskool kids' camcorder or a photocopying machine and then taking advantage of the quirks and distortions of these murky media, resulting in surreal works of art. Here's a hardware-hacking photog who's somehow modified a flatbed scanner, turning it into a large-format digital camera. Michael Golembewski took apart a Canon LIDE 20 scanner and lashed it onto an old large-format Horseman 450L monorail 4x5 camera. Apparently Michael removed the lamp from the scanner and carefully made it light-tight using a combination of duct tape, putty and black spraypaint. Let's let Michael explain the rest:

It might look crude, but it works very nicely. I've attached a modified lens board directly onto the scanner, so it can easily be connected to the Horseman. The lens board attachment holds the scanner optics at the same level as a ground glass plate. This allows me to compose and focus shots on the ground glass, instead of with preview scans—it's much faster. I have two lenses that I use with this model—a Kompur lens from 1915, and a found 8x10 enlarger lens.

More after the jump.

Take a look at some of these photos this guy has captured using this odd and wonderful rig. The scanner has an eerie way of turning rectangular shapes into almost architectural forms. It turns everyday occurances and movement into compositions that seem like they're from another dimension. The result is pure serendipity, and an entirely new way to look at our world.

Turning scanners into homebrew digital cameras [Boing Boing]

Contact information for this author is not available.