Comments on: tom chambers – improbable dreams https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/ burn is an online feature for emerging photographers worldwide. burn is curated by magnum photographer david alan harvey. Wed, 07 Sep 2016 08:29:46 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.4 By: Michael McGowan https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-55089 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:09:44 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-55089 I love the ideas, but I feel like they suffer from the same thing that plagued the stop motion films of the 80’s, Lighting. It’s almost impossible to get accurate but the lighting is the only thing that distinguishes one photo from the other (inside of the montage).

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By: smith https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51907 Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:09:03 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51907 hi tom,
i’m new here; actually, i signed up to comment on your series. it is so refreshing to see work posted on this site that goes beyond documentation.

i think the images that resonate the most strongly with me are the ones that catch the human figure in motion. for example, image #s: 1 & 22 make use of the figure as it moves through the frame. these present the idea of “fleeting” most strongly to me, and invite me to experience it in my own imagination, and more so than the images of moving animals…animals are always something “other”, i think.

but i also love the use of animals, and people’s relationship to them. in some of these images, the animals seem to symbolize nature as something sort of antagonistic to human existence –the bird on a leash, for example. in other images, it feels like you use animals to symbolize the wild & unrefined kernel at the core of human existence.

i should also mention that i love your use of LIGHT. and that i enlarged these images to occupy the entirety of my computer screen, and i just don’t see the problems other people see.

i understand that none of these are documents, but the images here that appeal to me the least are the ones that look the most documentary, and the ones in which the subjects are aware of the camera.

k, i guess that’s it from me. i have admired your work from afar for so long!!!

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By: Anthony R.Z. https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51572 Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:03:27 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51572 Nice manipulations. People very often confuse photoshop manipulations with photography. It’s not photography and will never be, it just uses photographic material. Technically and philosophically it’s faraway from double exposures on film.

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By: peter grant https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51396 Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:59:33 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51396 Thanks TOM..

I sometimes do some double exposures in camera on 35mm neg colour.. When it works its such a pleasant surprise. I’ve not done it as much as I’d like but will pursue more. In camera on film my main concern is about picking subject that leaves somes open shadowed space and try and incorporate an overlay in to that corner.. Haven’t done enough to show successfully.

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By: crubin https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51380 Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:30:17 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51380 I love your work. I don’t look at it trying to explain it…the work just stop me…I have to stay there for a while contamplating its beauty…they look like paintings.

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By: jandak https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51369 Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:21:00 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51369 Don’t get me wrong, I really do love those images, excellent vision, precise composition and imagination. I enjoyed it from very beginning to the end. However I do believe this should be and magazine focusing mostly on photojournalism and documentary !!! Correct me if I am wrong, but no matter how stunning this serie is I don’t think it follow basic rules of either of two journalism or documentary.
Seems to me like now we will send the message out there ” yeah people go ahead and manipulate your images to create new reality and present it as something real, something that documents true reality”.
As I said I like all the images, it’s stunning piece of work but would like to see it somewhere else not in this magazine.
I do respect and always liked Alan’s taste when it come to selecting images, and I am trying to understand why is this in here, please help me with it :)
Thanks

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By: Tom Chambers https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51325 Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:47:10 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51325 Thanks everyone for your thoughtful comments. Feedback is alway helpful.

I’ve been making montages for approximately 15 years, exhibiting for 13. Of the images shown here, the square format and pano images were done sometime after 2006. Yes, I have done a number of illustrations and book covers, as digital photomontage works nicely with those types of projects. Some significant influences on my work are religious art (Mexican mostly) and magic realism literature.

I’ll try too answer your question, Peter. I typically work by planning the whole image and sketching it loosely at first. However, the direction may change as I am shooting or in the construction process, and I may end up with a final image which is not related to the original idea. There are also occasions when I might use a particular photo as a starting point, and then add elements to it, thereby changing the context of the original photo.

When shooting the different components of a final image, I consider direction and intensity of light, as well as perspective. The tone and saturation of color is not a consideration when shooting an image, but is handled later in the process of manipulation.

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By: peter grant https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51323 Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:34:38 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51323 2nd comment I need to say…

So well done in getting all those original images.. They look great on there own..

Would truly love to hear you talk about the things you needed to think about technically during these constructs and how much the original images inspired you within themselves..

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By: peter grant https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51322 Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:12:43 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51322 Tom..

Your work is beautiful. Its artistic in a pre Raphalite way.. The difficulty for me is a more contemporary association, which are those high gloss adds one might find on the inside of high end magazines. This has nothing to do with you and your work but my association. I just wish I could get beyond it as I truly appreciate this whole other worldliness. I ‘ll certainly be checking out your web site..

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By: Mark W https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51318 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:52:34 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51318 Have to reiterate all the positive comments made here. It’s brave stuff and seizes the attention, with so much going on Just the blending of themes of youth with autumnal environment, even before the actual stories start, is so well done and so much to be pursued. The work and drive that’s gone into this is so clear.
Also have to reiterate some of the negative comments. The first run through is hypnotically powerful because it’s the ideas the drive it, but nobody is innocent of montage techniques and pretty quick we start playing spot the join… My least-favourites are the skyline in 5 and the window edge and like Brian sez, the perspective in 4. This is JUST because they are such powerfully conceived images otherwise. 4 is just great. Also, generally speaking, it’s so hard to pull off the look of anything seen through water… but what ya gonna do?… the theme of drowning is one of the compelling things here…
You’re reaching so hard for forceful ideas that the conceptions, the stories, the ambition of the vision aren’t matched by this technique. “This guy should be painting,” I thought… but hell, who wants to do that? Image technique can be improved, one pixel at a time, if necessary, and visions can be toned down a little. I don’t mean realism, but… the second horse in 13 for instance is way too much of a reach.
But hey, great going, congratulations on the galleries and hoping for all success to you.
Also got to say it speaks strongly for folks who hate dogs :) The symbol of protector with a constant threat of betrayal and savagery…

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By: benroberts https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51313 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:17:10 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51313 feels like a not quite as accomplished version of Simen Johan – http://www.simenjohan.com/x/2000_2003/index.htm – who was doing this kind of stuff in a much more interesting way about 6 years ago.

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By: Simon Griffee https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51305 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:33:27 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51305 Is ‘straight’, unposed, ‘un-retouched’ photography fundamentally a medium of ‘choosing after the fact’, when you take what life gives you and edit it down and choose the picture that ‘says what you want to say best’? Shooting loose, not thinking too much…and then…editing…

With painting, and ‘pictorial’ photography, do you ‘plan’ more, do you choose what you want to say, *before* doing the work? Do you need to have something to say *before* doing the work, or does it flow *from* the work, maybe building upon a *feeling*…

Questions on a Thursday night after vino rosso and fernet branca…

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By: Nathaniel McMahon https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51303 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:30:06 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51303 I thought the title shot was beautiful. It’s the kind of stuff could easily be high end fashion advertising. Although I think these are well crafted images I would be interested to see if they hold up in larger printed material. Quite a few clashes of sharpening and colour curves bent off shape detract, I think from the ease at which the images are viewed. The subject matter for me is a kind of emotional pornography though, nice eye candy but the images and series leave me with nothing after the experience. In that way I view this as a work of fashion, and if that is the case I think it can be improved technically and there are many fine examples in the world of fashion. I think confusing it with soul searching ‘creative’ work will not do this project justice. Fashion feeds of art. To this Englishman with a stiff upper lip this seems to be trying to do it the other way around. But many people don’t seem to think so. Maybe this is a stereotypical English opinion. Keep pushing onwards!

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By: Bjarte Edvardsen https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51292 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:38:40 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51292 This is the style of photography I often go dreaming about doing all the time, and I don’t mean the montage making, but the process of finding good locations, interesting characters and props and really put an effort into using creativity to make interesting photographs. It’s something about the feeling when you direct everything from start to end, from planning to editing, which is very thrilling. It’s 100% control. So yes, it’s good to see someone who is living out that dream and doing it right, it certainly evokes a mood. To me it’s a feeling between being awake and asleep.

Many photoshop montage makers fall into the trap of pulling contrasts and colours in too extreme directions, but that’s not the case here. The only piece I’m struggling with is #9 where the sharpness look fake.

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By: Brian Frank https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51281 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:20:49 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51281 I’m finding this kind of work tough to judge. Since my day job is all about manipulating image in Photoshop, I struggle to set aside my disbelief and simply enjoy the compositions. Little things like the lighting of the snake in #2, the perspective of the ground in #4, the fish floating on their side in #11 stick out like a sore thumb.

That being said, I can appreciate the difficulty of the work done here, and many of them take your breath away. Number 8 and 15, for example, stopped me in my tracks. I found myself staring in amazement.

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By: Tommy https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51270 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:00:25 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51270 Tom – I love this work. On occasion the montage comes through slightly more obvious than other parts, but it does leave you to imagine what is montage and what isn’t. This work is that good.

LaChapelle-esque except on the darker and more moody side – please take this as a major complement to your artistic work.

Like others I viewed more than one, and in its entirety. I will also return to it.

Congrats – a composition worthy of burn attention.

Regards.

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By: Steve M https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51256 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:34:54 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51256 Marvellous!!!

Some of these images had me open-mouthed in admiration – others left me variously shocked, amused, frightened… All of these reactions are, of course, evoked by the way your images touch my ‘reality’…

Well done,Tom. Excellent work on many levels.

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By: gaetano belverde https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51252 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:45:57 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51252 Wow… amazing work! I’m happy to see this kind of photos on burn! ciao

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By: wendy https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51250 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:40:23 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51250 each image
has its own narrative…
love your
imagination
and
intellect…..
the
dress in muddy water
to
snakes and birds….
I wonder if you
dreamt of this
as a child?!
or dream of now….
***

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By: marcin luczkowski https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/09/tom-chambers-improbable-dreams/#comment-51249 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:16:59 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=4235#comment-51249 as a painter I can say only hats off…

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