At first glance, Melbourne-based photographer Ben Thomas’ new Chroma series of images look like vintage postcards or even hyper-realistic paintings, but they are photographs of urban areas that are high in color with reduced blacks that result in a bright, saturated appearance.
Using specific techniques to alter the look of photographs is not new for Ben. His work is always manipulated
in some way, making it distinctly his own. He has utilized reducing the color and darkening the blacks his Anti-Chroma Series.
In his Accession Series he creates mirror images of city scenes and architecture and utilizes the ’tilt-shift’ effect in both Accession and in his CityShrinker work.
Water is another series in which he uses almost all of the aforementioned effects.
He recently completed a two month artist residency with the Villa-Lena Foundation in Tuscany developing this new series Chroma.
Ben Thomas Chroma
About Ben Thomas:
Born in Adelaide Ben Thomas graduated from the International Digital Effects and Animation College prior to moving to Melbourne where he embarked upon a journey to discover and share new experiences through photography.
Upon realizing that viewing a photograph is very personal and emotional experience that has a profound effect on the way an image is perceived, he strives to evolve his photography to provoke questions about the way we view the places in which we live.
Ben’s work has been shown the USA, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo and Melbourne and featured in a number publications. His clients include Sony, Cake, Singapore Airlines, Penguin Books and Chronicle Books.
Chronicle has published a book of his, Tiny Tokyo: The Big City Made Mini which features ’tilt-shift’ photography. An effect that appears to shrink subjects by blurring specific areas of the photograph, making urbanscapes and crowd scenes look as though they are composed of tiny toys.
above:His 2014 Tiny Tokyo book received lots of press from photography and design blogs
His first book, Tiny Tokyo: The Big City Made Mini (Chronicle Books, 2014) is available for purchase here
