Further Italy Photography -The Vatican-

[Andrew Brooks]

To start this topic, above is a big set piece shot from my travels in Italy in the summer of 2007, this involved many images dropped together and I think is quite a deliberate attempt to create a painting from photographs, in this post I want to talk about another big shot which I've been working on for some months, taken at the same time last year



Anyone who has spoken to me about my work over the last 5 months will have heard me talking about a shot which is turning into the longest running picture I have made so far. This is an image of the inside of St Peters Basilica, which is the main space within the Vatican in Rome, the shot is taken from the mighty dome which sits on top if this space, where amongst the dull thug of a mild vertigo attack, I took a few 100 captures, which have formed the backbone of this image. the original idea was to try and capture a photo real version of an MC Escher print which I remembered and loved, from his early work, where his incredible mind was occupied by the buildings and landscapes of Italy(Before he returned home to the less striking Holland and started on his more well know optical illusion work, kind of entering a the landscapes of his imagination)

Here's that picture

In attempting to build his picture I created more space around it than was needed, then the picture kind of took on a life of it's own, growing over months, with added arches and being able to see underneath and great area to the left and right.

At the moment it still feels like it is around 2 weeks off being finished(Although I've been saying that for months now), so I don't want to show it yet. But when it is done I will put it on here for people to see, as I think it's shaping up to be a special one.

Cheers

Andrew