JOHN BERMINGHAM

full frame. I often sketch these out, just roughly, to both remember the ideas and also as an underdrawing. They allow me to compose the image and give direction for photographing the elements I need. I also paint and create 3d digital elements depending on the nature of the image. A lot of the time, most notable on my Think About The Future series, even though the concept will be outlandish and extreme, I resist any hyper-realism or flashy presentation - I want the message to escape the medium. For Think About The Future, I wanted to create images that were unpretty and unphotogenic, almost drab. I wanted the images to be like a stark statement.

I enjoy using things in the images as something they’re not – hubcaps for UFos, books for boats, hairdryers for submarines. Reality isn’t a huge concern for me, but I do like the images to have a believability in and of themselves, e.g., we know the UFo isn’t real but in the image I believe it’s interacting with its environment, and its light is being dispersed by the clouds and backlighting the characters in the foreground. one of the powers of compositing is being able to get a point across by putting elements together that you couldn’t otherwise, that visually deliver the concept quickly, e.g., the baby and the plastic in ‘Life in plastic’. I had no intention of making anyone think it was a real photograph, but I wanted it to be believable enough to deliver the punch of being oblivious and vulnerable in the face of plastic pollution. The baby, who I did not want to appear to be in distress, represents (among other things) what I saw as my own naivety with regards to the extent that plastic permeates the world we are living in, and in particular the idea that we are likely ingesting microplastics in some of the food we eat. Subsequently, an article appeared in The Guardian newspaper in december 2020 stating ‘Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies. Babies are being born pre-polluted.’ www.allthatcanbe.com

For me, the subject of all of the images is the idea. The characters and elements are just my way of getting the pixels to convey the concept. With the advent of AI-driven creations and how easy it is becoming to conjure any kind of imagery we can imagine, I feel it’s important to have something of value to say, something original or unique, or at least a new way to reiterate something important. Above all, I believe in positive output, creating something to be momentarily enjoyed or something to be pondered long after. Whilst at first glance much of my output seems bleak, it is all created from a pure place and always with an intended positive purpose, and never destructive.