Andrew Brooks is a photographer, a conceptual digital artist and film maker living and working in Manchester, northwest England.
His visual palette draws its inspirations from analogue reality, the contemporary urban surroundings in which he lives and works or the natural world that he escapes into.
“The crucial element to my work is atmosphere…. No matter how much digital application is going on, the atmosphere and feel of a picture is always the most important thing.”
Andrew’s creative process often results in capturing hundreds of images to create a complete work. Then, a meticulously developed sequence of cut, paste and rebuilding, moulding a new scene from his own vividly re-imagined viewpoint that is consistent, yet also a parallel with that of the perceived reality it represents.
The images that emerge depict starkly beautiful urban scenes, empty but for the hollowed-out shells of buildings; cities suspended in the stars, imagined urban environments and serene pastoral scenes of the British countryside, seemingly real and at the same time untruthful in their vivid beauty.
“The large scale of my stills photography enables a viewer to enter and explore each scene in depth and to constantly find new elements and hidden layers within the jigsaw,” says Andrew. “My obsession with distorting reality continues through into the idiom of film. By applying carefully constructed techniques, piecing together multiple images merged with sound, I create my own palette of animated elements that go on to find a new output in both music videos and my live sessions of mixing real time visuals.”
Andrew Brooks Photography | Manchester Photoblog
