Expose Photo-Paper with a Computer Screen to Create Laptopograms

Laptopograms give “taking a screenshot” a new meaning. These are images made by pressing photosensitive paper to a computer screen, exposing the paper with an image on the screen for a period of time, and then developing the paper. The process is similar to making contact prints or photograms.

While any computer monitor would work, a laptop would probably be easiest, since you can do the exposing in the darkroom where you’ll be developing the paper. You’ll probably burn through quite a few sheets before figuring out how long you need to expose the paper for.

Aditya Mandayam coined the term, and uses a *nix shell script to turn the monitor on and then off after a certain amount of time:

#!/bin/sh
sudo vbetool dpms on ; sleep 2.0; sudo vbetool dpms off

There you have it, a way to shoot “new-school” and print “old-school”.

As always, if you do try out this project, be sure to report back with your results!

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