Hit the jump for some photos, a bunch of words, the final posters and an interview with the man himself.

Sometime in March, Andy informs me offhandedly that he’s going to do a project, that he’s been into “geometric shapes” and he wants to do something with “Pascals triangle, but real” and it’s going to be “huge.” Thinking nothing of it, I agree to partake. One day in April I turn up at his house and there are these freaking triangles everywhere. “You still wanna take photos of them right? There’s a rooftop we can use. The project’s due next week but it’s scheduled to rain almost everyday until then.” The next few mornings were spent peeking out the blinds to predictable Vancouver today-is-a-good-day-to-hang-myself weather. Friday looked to be the same and with the project deadline looming I could hear the worry in Andy’s voice when he called me that morning. But at 6pm the geometric gods blessed us- the weather cleared and the sun was peeking through. At 6.30pm we turned up unannounced at Maggie’s house with a bunch of triangles screaming ROOFROOFNOWNOWPLEEASSEE.

Maggie is psyched!

We took the lift (elevator) and were met with many confused faces on the way.

Setting up. Note the lack of sunnyness.

All done up.

Then out of no where, the wind fought off the clouds and we could see all geometricshapes in our way. I took photos like a man possessed and after a short but fulfilling session, Maggie’s landlord came out and started screaming about how we were on the wrong side of the railing and the shoot was abandoned. All good though.

Maggie after experiencing the wrath of her unhappy landlord. Sorry Maggie!! And thanks for letting us use your roof!

The final poster (click to go bigger):

After all that was done, we spent a couple days thinking about other ways to display the triangle in all its glory. The answer came in the form of the most clichéd phrase of the year: Go green. The next dry day, we loaded up the car again and gunned it to the forest. It was to be a night shoot and everything was planned out perfectly: we’d get there half an hour before dark, set up in the forest, shoot the photo at night, set down and head home.

Colin called out fitting in the triangled car despite being 10 feet tall. He was involved in every step of the project, from conception to production. Thanks Colin! Killing it!

Le transportation.

Getting darker.

All seemed perfect until we started stumbling over roots and shrubs in the darkness… It was clouded over so there was no chance of moon light and all we had was ambient light from the city filtering through the trees. Then…

“Did anyone bring a flashlight? I didn’t think about it before I left.”
“Uhhh”
“Nono, seriously, did anyone bring a flashlight. I can’t see shit.”
“Umm, no man. No flashlight.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Three of us travelled to the forest in the dead of the night, knowing it will be the dead of the night, and none of us are smart enough to bring flashlights?”

Floating in black.

Having only one strobe powerful enough for the situation, I decided to giv’er with a technique first used by architecture photographers a while ago, but recently made more accessible thanks to Photoshop. It involves making several exposures with the flash lighting up different areas of each picture, then compositing the photos together later on. This wasn’t the easiest task because:
1. Did not have a tripod, so after taking one picture and traversing through the shrubbery and moving my flash, I had to return to the same spot the next time and hope the next photo would line up perfect with the photo before, and the one before that.
2. It was dark as hell and every-time I looked at my LCD screen I would go blind, again. And again.
3. Never actually tried the technique before.

Anyway, thankfully it all worked out in the end. This image is constructed from six different exposures, the bottom half of the photo is one, and the trees on the top, the other five.

The final poster:

Then we set the triangle up in a different spot and were silly in front of it, right before the XFiles Vancouver weather reared its drizzly face. Pic by Andy.

That’s it! Now here’s an interview with Andy Chung.

How did you come up with the idea of making a big Pascal’s Triangle and what was it for?
Well it was a two part school project where we basically had to communicate some aspect of a historical figure. I was assigned Blaise Pascal who was a mathematician and religious philosopher. Since talking about religion makes me want to kill myself I focused on his math stuff. Basically the first part of the project I made an alternative to a math text book (a small print booklet thing), so for the second part I just wanted to do something big and different. The idea was to create something which wouldn’t necessarily be educational, but rather something engaging which would create an interest in the topic. And so, huge triangles were born.

How did you construct the triangles?
Cardboard with fabric wrapped around them.

What’s it like standing 2 feet from a ledge on a windy rooftop with a death drop while an angry landlord screams at you?
Pretty awsome.

Why did we not think about bringing flashlights into the forest, knowing that it was going to be pitch black?
Because me and Colin thought of that about a block from my house, which was a block too far!

Listening to so much dreamy french electronic lately, has that influenced your work at all?
Not really, unless you mean reading french design blogs, then kinda.

Could you see yourself doing more sculptural and less drawing/design based work?
Perhaps, but not anytime soon again, this project was a huge headache. Maybe if I have a good idea or something.

Did you have any influences for this project or design influences in general?
Have geometric shapes been making a comeback in the designosphere?
I think i can answer these two questions at the same time. It’s kind of unfortunate but a lot of the design I look at on a regular basis is from design blogs. It’s just way more accessible than books and magazines, although I do look at that stuff when I can. Also I think I’m way more into european stuff than american stuff design wise. But yeah, geometric stuff is getting big. I mentioned french design blogs before, check out manystuff.org for some sometimes decent french design stuff.

Do you have an ARTIST MANIFESTO?
Oh god no. I’m no artist.

Andy’s portfolio can be found at: Animal Youth

Pictures by David Lang

Note: Many thanks to Colin Bridges and Maggie Chok who helped a bunch with this project! Oh and of course David Lang too. - Andy