Portloe, Cornwall (Photo joiner / collage) - Limited Edition of 1 Print

Almost an award winning artist who pioneers a 'joining' technique to build large photographic montages/collages capturing and depicting some of the most recognisable locations in his hometown of London, UK. Born in the Leicester, an area in the centre of England, however he was raised and grew up around the fringes of London in Kent and later in south west London where he currently lives with his wife and two children. The 'joiner' technique is an evolution of the one David Hockney pioneered in the 80's, however this has been brought into the modern era utilising digital cameras and computer software. Self taught, and proud of the fact, the creativity and technique has formed unconstrained by any college or institution. Inspiration is drawn from the world and people around him, his passion as he goes about creating his joiners see him going to some extraordinary lengths to capture his subject, including almost getting arrested outside Buckingham Palace. His enthusiasm for his work is infectious and immediately apparent when talking about joiners, particularly as he continues to build his body of work. He commented in a recent interview: "having access to some of the most recognisable monuments and buildings in the world right on my doorstep, and being able to photograph and show them in a way which has never been seen before is just fantastic! Being able to tell a story and a narrative with a single joiner is so incredibly gratifying. My joiners are precious to me, in a way like children; I usually spend a long time thinking about them, planning and researching them before I ever get my camera out of the bag. Then, when I'm on location I'll often spend hours, sometimes days to get just the right vantage point and light, and that's only half the story. The truly exciting part, the bit which gets my pulse racing is when I'm in front of my computer with a clean canvas and I start to piece the joiner together. The feeling as it starts to slowly come together, as it starts to form and emerge on screen is just so exciting! Each joiner lives somewhere between a still image and a video, in that due to the time it takes to shoot the scene/monument/subject matter, time passes, earlier elements of the scene move forward in time and so exist as an evolution and step forward from the last images which were shot.