All of the images in ‘Image Arsenal’ are created from scans or photo’s that I have taken over the years. This library of images started with scans of everything and anything from lettuce leaves, bark, straws, circles, stars, cloth, arrows, etcetera and more recently, architecture. My current works are based on photo’s of buildings turned into spaceships and placed in landscapes. I called these Elysian Islands.
Photography for me was more about what I could do with an image after the fact as opposed to just presenting a single photo taken for it’s own merit. Basically the desire to make more of an object out of a photo started in the darkroom. Back then I was influenced by Duane Michals use of series and combined images. I created a series of sequences based on things changing, a hand turning off a light switch and so on and then moved on to combining images such as putting an active street view in the back window of a derelict car in a field. To combine images in the darkroom back then required a lot of time and a lot of paper.
Around the same time while at university I was introduced to a process camera. I look back at that now and realize that a process camera was the closest to a scanner one could have. Now I have photoshop and a scanner and things are much simpler.
‘Image Arsenal’s’ albums are grouped as studies. Each study is loosely based on a theme.
My original library that I still use can be seen on my Flickr site. To see more of my artwork go to Johnclairwatts.com.
