Subject: Surreal

There are four different elements to this picture. Firstly the piano, which was in a bar on St. Benedicts St., called Platform 12. It was known as the Piano Bar, It had live music and the piano was part of the furniture and regularly played. Sadly the venue has closed, as with most pubs. The spiral staircase is in the library. The chair was in the window of the Ten Bells PH, and the cobbled road can be found on Elm Hill. As usual i brought these images together by experimenting and rearranging. The title comes from the distortion of the road, which mirrors the curve of the piano. The curves in the chair and stairs, accentuate the composition.

I was fascinated by the red dice that you can see, because they looked wonderful. So I took a set of photos of the one dice, at different aspects, on the end of a pencil, attached by Blutac, near the window. I have thrown the resultant dice as a collage, from the gantry of a pit head winding column in Kalgoorlie W.A. The clouds probably came from somewhere else in Australia. This took a long time to conceive, render and finalise, but I was happy with the result.

I saw this fantastic shadow of a tree, cast against the side of a building in Colegate. I had a photograph, taken a couple of years previously, of a tree silhouetted by the sun. I married the two images, and hit upon the idea of substituting the dark image of the tree, with a sunlit lawn. The surprising result threw up great connotations.

Here are three photographs of tractor engines. These are the rusty old things that are parked on Cromer beach, for launching and retrieving the fishing boats. So if you can understand that the images are layered, one ontop of the other, I have literally drilled holes through, to reveal the underlying engine. I had a great time doing this, it was like picking the spots off, when you had measles, or pealing dead skin from sunburn!

The rather contorted view of the wooden staircase, which leads down to an observation platform, for a view of the Twelve Apostles. A geological phenomena at the Great Bight, on the south Australian coast. Included in that clash, are a stack of tables. The sympathetically distorted, and arranged cable drums were photographed outside City Electrical Factors on Barker St. I think the picture looks a bit anaemic, but it seems to have a resonance. I worked towards that dynamic composition, which was eventually achieved. I had no clue as to where I was going with this picture. It was a case of throw anything in and let’s see what can occur.

When I was doing my degree, I went on a field trip to North West Wales. It was the middle of September, and the weather was very mixed: mostly sunny, but when it rained,…it chucked it down. Anyway we visited a lot of spectacular landscapes and vistas. One of them, is this damn at Llyn Stwlan. The rope was attached to a boat, mooring at the Norwich Yatch Station, across the road from the railway station. I was learning how to distort the rope to the effect I subsequently achieved. The sky has been replaced with something more sunny!

This is Lady Musgrave island, just off the coast from Agnes Water in Queensland. It was named after the wife of the Queensland colonial governor, Sir Anthony Musgrave, during the nineteenth century. The ornate lanterns can be seen in the Royal Arcade, near the market in Norwich, and the electricity pylons are in Norfolk somewhere. I created the blue sky above the beach, to accommodate the suspended lights. I like the way the guy in the green shorts is standing, as if in disbelief.

This a montage of yatchs that were sailing on Oulton Broad. They are members of the Waveney and Oulton Broad Yatch Club. I took quite a few photos from the riverbank, and have ended up collaging eight different shots. Some of the number identity markings, on the sails were back to front, because I had to turn the boat around,(in the computer) to face the same way as the others. So I erased all the markings on the sails. They are sailing on a broken slate roof, and the opposite bank is a low brick wall, just outside my flat. The sky is of course, perversely, a rusty corrugated fence, probably in Australia somewhere. C’mon nothing is simple or straightforward…Jeeez

I was drawn to the patterns created by the rain dripping off the trees, that were overhanging the river. I took quite a few photos whilst getting soaked. How we suffer for our art!  I have montaged three photos of ripples in the river. The gate and railings are by the river, near New Mills Yard. Sometimes I will photograph something that gives me the opportunity to cut through the spaces, behind the object. This is a good example, and I liked the configuration it posed. The concrete spheres were an incidental, last minute inclusion, that gave the picture depth. These spheres are used to block off a road entrance by the bus station, but allow bikes and pedestrians through. I collaged the ripples to achieve a more concentrated effect.

This is a collage of two different interiors in the Norwich Art School. Through the window; I’ve replaced the view with some ripples of raindrops on a river. I found the golden angel blowing a trumpet in a church, just down the road from the school; St.Georges on Colegate. The image was finished off, with a lens flare filter. As usual the image came about unconsciously, but the title was obvious.