Thomas Barbey

Thomas Barbèy grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, across the street from the “Caran D’ache” factory, the largest manufacturer of art supplies. He started drawing seriously at the age of 13, using black  and gouaches for color. His influences were Philippe Druillet, Roger Dean and H.R. Giger. After living in Geneva for 17 years and designing posters for musical bands, he decided to move to Italy, where he lived in Milan for 15 years making a living as a successful recording artist, lyricist and fashion photographer.

He has combined several images taken over a period of twenty years to create surreal situations with the help of the enlarger in a dark room. His work has a specific style and is very characteristic. He only works with Black and White, including Sepia toning at times.

Some images are composed of negatives that are separated by a decade in the actual time that he has taken them and only come to life when they found their perfect match. It’s the combination of two or more negatives that give birth to a completely unusual vision, but most of all, the title he gives the final image is the glue and the substance of the piece. I believe that the negative situations, years spread apart, help to establish the fast paced world which us humans are destroying yet  not noticing this destruction.

Analysis Of Thomas Barbey’s Photo

This photo gives the viewer a sense of annoyance as this photo resembles the destruction which is occurring in the world. The composition of this photo is good because it meets the rule of thirds as the main subject is positioned in the middle third with the walls on either side of it. There is also a great use of depth of field allowing the audience to engage with the whole image and get taken on the journey down the road with everything in focus. This makes the image a more interesting and ‘real’ because in real life we see everything focused whether its close or far away. There is a great use of context that lies within this image as it is a clear reference to how our man made structures and busy lives are destroying our world, just the this bridge that appears to have destroyed what looks like someones house and intruded on their personal lives.

What I intend to do

 My intentions are to capture the fast developing world and give a sense of this fantasy world that we all imagine compared to the impacts that the earth has taken as a result of this. Also i will explore how media portrays the world to be amazing for example Instagram famous people edit the world to look fantasized and better than it actually is, compared to the reality of the world which people don’t usually see or how possibly where the world is amazing people miss the opportunities to embrace it due to the advanced technology taking over our lives. This will have contextual links with today’s society in the way that Donald Trump believes the world is not being destroyed and is not suffering environmental impacts from humans development however it most definitely and clearly is, which is what I will demonstrate through my work. I will clearly use photo manipulation to emphasis these impacts that humans are having on earth.

Further inspiration for surrealism with Environmental Issues included