Improbable Dreams
by Tom Chambers

Through photomontage I present unspoken stories which illustrate fleeting moments in time and which are intended to evoke a mood in the viewer. These mythical illustrations might address the fragility of childhood or the delicate transition experienced by a child passing into adolescence and then adulthood. Others express the tension in the uncertain coexistence between man and his environment, a delicate balance too often ignored and damaged. Each photomontage is carefully constructed, using both images that have been planned and those that unexpectedly enhance the story. With digital photography I desire to move beyond documentation of the present, and rather seek to fuse reality and fantasy in musing about possibilities of the future.

To create a photomontage I photograph each piece of the final image using a Nikon digital camera or a medium format film camera. The processed film is scanned at a high resolution, approximately 80 megabytes per frame. Then, I use Photoshop software with a Macintosh computer to combine the pieces, thus creating the final image. Lastly, this final image is printed with archival pigment inks on cotton rag paper.