Breaking Pictures - Pixel Portraits

Have found the positioning I'm happy with and have added the corresponding hexadecimal colour code to each of the large pixels. I think this has the right balance between emphasising that this is a digital construct and being an interesting image in its own right.

 

Breaking Pictures - Billboards

I've been photographing the billboard near my house for about four years. Every week a new advertising message arrives and by the end of the week the wind and rain have taken their toll. Sometimes it's just a small tear, other times the whole thing drops off and leaves an interesting mish-mash of old messages. 

It's a bit like London - lots of layers on top of one another, the past is never far away and always mixing with the present.

There's a project here, I just haven't found a way into it as yet. In the meantime I'll keep collecting images.

 

Breaking Pictures - Hand Scans

These were done with a flat-bed scanner. I love the detail you get with this. 

The lady who sat for me for this image had very warm hands and this against the cold glass produced a lovely ghostly after-image which I scanned instead of her hands.

You can see more of my work at www.marktamer.co.uk

Breaking Pictures - bleach

Something I've wanted to do for a while is to get more physical with my work - to get away from digital and to create something with my hands. So as part of my Breaking Pictures series I thought it would be fun to take some actual, real-world photographs and subject them to some physical abuse.

 

Domestic bleach dropped onto a photograph. There's something a little disturbing applying bleach to a face -and this was the only portrait I tried this on.

 

These I felt were a lot more successful. They are photographs taken on a former weapons testing site that's now derelict and being reclaimed as a nature reserve. The aggressive act of the bleach fits well with the subject matter and make for a better series of images.

Breaking Pictures - Residency

I've recently completed a residency at the Shape Gallery in Stratford and it was a great opportunity to try out some new ideas. I set up with a mini studio for taking portraits, a flat-bed scanner for scanning hands, a laptop for "breaking" digital images and a work area for me to drop and drag bleach across photographic prints.

Over the three days I was able to add new work to the gallery wall. That's Robot Santa on the left.