This series is my attempt, using contemporary photographic technology, to create a series of abstracted images that break free from any connection with the original ‘donor’ image, and from any traditional photographic point of reference. An attempt, to take the photograph to altogether different place.
The tools
The camera is used solely as an image collection tool. The captured image is stripped of any recognizable context, its basic elements exposed then reduced to its base components and redistributed to form the foundation of these works. The grist is a mélange of colours, shapes and pixels. Then, the computer is used to become in effect a sophisticated brush and canvas, to create photosynthesis as a term of conversion.
The process
Each work is an evolution, of layers added to one original layer. The reason I have worked this way was to create a limit to the amount of times one could return to and change the work in progress, much the same way – to some degree at least – as a painter. This also adds a discipline to the process, forces me to think more carefully about each change and layer, knowing I can only go back a finite number of times.
Titles
The gallery title, Photo Synthesis, refers to the lengthy and often painstaking conversion process followed to arrive at the point of completion. Each work has its own story, whether primarily conceptual or as an emotional response to a variety of concerns, fears or hopes. The works have no guiding titles. This allows the viewer to have an untainted personal response to the works.
