The March of the Megapixel - Part One

The March of the Megapixel - Part One

Creativity can be in the eye of the beholder and one transient stage in taking up digital photography is getting over that terrible urge to produce "creative" images that are really a bit OTT and don't have much artistic substance to them. It's still fun, it's still a great idea to explore these things, but how do they weather the passing of time and the gaining, hopefully, of a bit of photographic maturity? So, at the risk of some of these being best forgotten, let's have a look at those heady days around 1994-1995, as film photography swiftly surrendered to the march of the megapixel.

First off, I already had form in this and used to do quite a bit of combination printing in the darkroom and also just sticking prints on top of each other to make composite images. I once highly offended the lady in The Pentax Gallery in London (my gosh, how long ago was that?) by looking disdainfully at the award winning images and pointing out they were just prints pasted on top of other prints, and peeling off as well. Oh dear. I can't remember which high flying photographer I was dismissing in such an offhand way.....I really hope I didn't add a comment about The Emperor's New Clothes, but I can't guarantee that the Arrogance of Youth didn't find a way.

So here's the chance for revenge, and to prove the form was already there here's a film composite, with the prints just stuck together, in fact, let's have the first two.

A Meeting of Worlds



Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Roma



And then Digital Fever took over:

Earlestown Fantasy



The Wall That Waits



Escape!



Circles of Confusion



Hands



Four Pink Fluorescent Pigs



Sign of the Zodiac



Prison of the Soul



Well there we have it, early digital excesses. Having confessed to these, next time I'll see if I can find a bit of photographic development. In the aesthetic sense of course.