Synthesizing Icons

About a dozen years ago I began musing about how I might physically express some ideas in my head for creative compositions that didn’t lend themselves easily, if at all, to the kind of photography I had been doing up until that point. Doing the obvious, becoming an accomplished painter, seemed too daunting a task, especially at my age. So I eventually turned to creating composite photographs (i.e. assembling a new photographic image from various parts of two or more other photographs) using the large eclectic library of digital images I had collected over the years as my artistic pallette. I think of the objects I place in my compositions as icons representing or symbolizing particular times, places, people etc. Placing these items in a new context creates a new symbolism, essentially synthesizing a new icon.

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