Composites

I bought my first digital camera 20 plus years ago and took it on a trip to the Straits of Magellan on the southern most tip of South America. I didn’t trust it so I also took along a Nikon 35mm film camera as backup. The digital camera didn’t disappoint. Next I cautiously opened my first version of PhotoShop, a very dense, complex and frustrating to learn digital image manipulation program. Now we have a love affair.

PS is based on layers. You can put different images on its own unique layer then erase part of the top layer to reveal the layer below with as many layers as you want. And, you can change any attribute about each layer like size, color density or edge treatment and you can shuffle the layers around. So your final combined image is called a composite. I was an oil painter for many years and PS to me is superior with two exceptions, actual image surface texture and the smell of the oil paint.

I have a photo library of at least 100K images which gives me a very big digital pallet to draw from. Most of the images below are composed of several to maybe a hundred “pieces” of other photos taken at different times and distant places.

I particularly like composites that suggest a story or take you to a place that’s only available in your mind.