Tom Chambers:Photomontages is his way of Life!

Previously,I have talked about some very great photographers who have , and are doing really great work in their respective fields. Today ,let me introduce to one more great photographer-Tom Chambers. Born in Lancaster,Pennsylvania ,he completed his completed a B.F.A. in 1985 from Ringling School of Art, Sarasota, Florida with an emphasis in graphic design and strong interest in photography. It was later in 1988 ,when he devoted himself to Photomontages. And now,when it comes to Photomontages, I don't think there is anybody else who wins the crown ,he is the one who rules this category. His work is really inspiring and it is really mesmerizing to see the effort he puts in each of his work.  

You might be shocked to know that every photograph of his involves almost one month of work sometimes because of his technique. Let me tell you how. He initially sketches a concept or idea that comes to his mind for the image. Then he photographs these images with a medium format camera. This is followed by combining the best shots(getting them is a time consuming job) making it into  a film which is scanned in high quality to be further processed in photoshop. Yes,this is how he creates awesome photomontages which I will talk about now.

Tom Chambers makes a very good usage of his dreams to gather ides for his Photomontages. It is not easy to transform images that you see in dreams into images ,but Chambers' capability of doing that is really commendable. Have a look at one of his images-

It looks as a dream in which a child is commanding the wild black dogs to do actions as per his wish. The child is standing in the fields and dressed in countryside attire, one plausible explanation behind this can be that Chambers was born in and raised in countryside , so he got images of fields in his dreams. Doesn't the picture create a dramatic mood in your mind? Maybe that was the motive of the artist when he created this picture.

See another picture from his works-

Did you notice one common thing between the two photographs? Both contain essentially two elements -one being a child and other being an animal. Again this photograph makes our mind go into the countryside ,where you can see horses and water bodies like a pond. Through his images of the countryside, Chambers very effectively creates a dramatic mood in the eyes of the viewer ,which is what makes his photographs special.