Photo Manipulation

Being quite an avid fan of photo manipulation and having a background in graphic design, it is always interesting to see what may become of my images once a publisher decides to use it for a book cover.

Submitting work to a photo library is not quite the same as fulfilling a specific brief - I tend to create images mainly for myself, but hope that ultimately they get picked out, bought and used by art buyers. What happens next is usually beyond my control. Will it get the whole cover? A bit of a cover? Will it be tweaked or changed to become something different? Will one image be turned into two?

I just never know, but trust in the judgement of others.

A friend joked that I should have left the island out, but I liked the sense of adventure it represented.

Published work

Received my quarterly statement from Trevillion Images and have just managed to top my recent goal by reaching 151 book covers! Hoping to hit 200 early next year.

Daydream believer

I've been practising my composite skills a lot recently, trying to use the camera as a device to take me to all sorts of fantastical places where princesses sneak away from the celebrations to sleep beyond the castle walls or rush through the ruined temples of some foreign land. Where Red Riding Hood begins her journey into the ominous woodland where grandma lives or the Fairy Queen makes her nightly journey to consult with her loyal subjects...

A link in a chain of expanding possibilities

They say that synchronicity increases when you are willing to listen to it. I was looking for the right words to explain a recent piece when I started reading John Blakemore's 'Black and White Photography Workshop' (David and Charles. ISBN 9780715317211) and one of the first things I read seemed to express exactly what I wanted to say, only far better than I could ever have hoped.

'I need to explore and express the ideas that currently intrigue me, and to find the appropriate photographic means to communicate them. However, I have always mistrusted the 'magic box', the brief moment of exposure, the lack of any necessary connection with that which is to be photographed beyond the hope that it might make a 'good picture'
My way of coping with this unease is to explore, to repeat, to work and to re-work. This process of exploration becomes, for me, the equivalent of the painter's or the writer's ability to remake, change and develop the single canvas or sentence. An individual photograph thus becomes not an end in itself but a link in a chain of expanding visual possibilities.'

Summer Holidays

A time to relax, spend time with the family and re-charge those batteries.

I've been reading a lot lately, taking a chance to explore new ideas and possibilities that might work their way into my images. I'm a firm believer in coincidences and I am certain that everything happens for a specific purpose, even though it may take a few goes to work out their meanings: the people we meet, the events in our lives, even our choice of books to read.

For those that are interested the books are as follows...

M. Scott Peck. 'The Road Less Travelled'
M. Scott Peck. 'People of the Lie'
Paulo Coelho. 'The Alchemist'
Paulo Coelho. 'Brida'
James Redfield. 'The Celestine Prophecy'
Prof. Richard Wiseman. 'Did You Spot the Gorilla?'
Dr Wayne Dyer. '10 Secrets For Success and Inner Peace'
Richard Carlson. 'Don't Sweat the Small Stuff'
Aldous Huxley. 'Brave New World'

The image above is the first I've completed since reading the above. It took two days to complete and involves the following ingredients... clouds, old watch face, old parchment, a novel found in the gutter, trees, the wings of a barn owl (death by natural causes), and a texture running through two pieces of plastic glued together that I found in the bookshop where I last worked.