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Shadow Photography

You can lay your keys on top of Glow in the Dark Thinking Putty and record the shadow it leaves behind. It's called a photogram (aka: shadow photography) and unlike a photograph where a distant image is focused onto film, in a photogram, the object is placed directly onto the light sensitive material.

Of course Glow in the Dark Thinking Putty also bounces, stretches, distorts, and can be rolled into three dimensional shapes! You can create our own photograms using a standard room light, the Blacklight Keychain, or a Fluorescent Blacklight.

Start out with the light source turned off and the Thinking Putty in an "uncharged" state. Just like working regular photography we don't want to "expose" our film prematurely. We need to keep it in semi-darkness.

Stretch out your Thinking Putty into a flat sheet. Place some keys, paperclips, pens, or other small items onto the Thinking Putty. Now activate the light source: switch on the room light, trace over the shapes with the Blacklight Keychain, or turn on your fluorescent blacklight and aim it towards the Thinking Putty.

Turn off the light source and remove the items. You'll see the impression left behind!

We can stretch, shape, and distort our image to produce cool effects and have fun!

Now, let's take the trick to the next level. If you have access to a laser or inkjet printer you can take images off the computer and print them onto a transparency (be sure to use the correct type of transparency in your printer!!). If you have color images, just print them in black & white. If the resulting shadow image isn't big enough just stretch it out! Thinking Putty comes with a built-in zoom feature!

Here are some interesting impressions I've made. I exposed them to light and voila!

Cat
Alice in Wonderland
Classic Silouette

Radioactive
The Mandelbrot Set
Crazy Aaron Himself

These are some of the ideas I've come up with but I'm sure that you can best them. Perhaps you could combine this technique with a sculpture or a third dimension (map an image of Earth onto a round ball...). Create a really interesting visual texture! I'd love to hear your ideas and see your creations so send them to me! crazyaaron@puttyworld.com

Comments, Questions, Requests? Email customercare@puttyworld.com