Posted on 12/05/2004 7:51:42 PM PST by Radix
MARSHFIELD - The composite design that Sports Illustrated used on its cover this week to pay tribute to the Red Sox and their fans as Sportsmen of the Year was designed by a Marshfield artist.
Robert Silvers, 36, invented the technology that enables him to place thousands of photos in a mosaic to form a recognizable big picture.
Silvers, who grew up in Plymouth, created the technology, called Photomosaics, while in graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. His images have since appeared on the covers of Life magazine, Newsweek, Playboy and dozens of others.
The Red Sox cover was the first he has done for Sports Illustrated, however, and he said the assignment was particularly enjoyable - ‘‘Certainly it was nice for me'' - because he had watched the playoffs that resulted in Boston's World Championship.
Silvers said the idea for the Photomosaics technology occurred to him at the Media Lab in 1995.
‘‘I saw a man arrange dominoes to look like people's portraits, and being a photographer I wondered if I could do that with photos,'' he said.
Silvers designed software that can reach into his library of images and pick the ones that will best fit with areas of what he calls a master image - the overall picture he is creating.
As much as possible, he tries to use images that relate to the master image thematically. In the case of the Red Sox cover, all the photos are images relating to the team, he said.
‘‘I love it when the photos relate to the overall image,'' Silvers said. ‘‘And it can be a direct image or an ironic one.''
Silvers caught a break with his technology even before he left MIT. One of his images was included in a Media Lab newsletter that was sent to 5,000 recipients - including a major photo stock agency that then asked him to design its annual report.
‘‘That went to just the right people - people who buy images,'' Silvers said.
After graduating, he founded his company, Runaway Technology, in Cambridge. He moved the company to Marshfield in 2003.
While his patented technology is critical to the process, he said, a significant amount of artistry remains involved.
‘‘A camera can take a photograph for you, but that doesn't make you an artist,'' Silvers said.
Silvers treats his images as fine art. He said he prints only six copies of most of his noncommissioned images, which cost $17,500. His portraits typically cost $25,000.
COOL!!! WE must be in there someplace!!
And the guy with the dominos must have gotten the idea from pictures made with various ascii characters. That idea is as old as the typewriter. I remember creating such pictures on manual typewriters back in the late 50s (life was pretty slow back then).
And crop circles. They take a long time to do. Hire some Martians. Wait for the ship to arrive. Pay them in gold or platinum (won't take US dollars or plastic). Etc. Etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.