Flying Swarms of Everyday Objects
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Brooklyn-based photographer Thomas Jackson wants to tap into your fears as you imagine a swarm of locusts or a Hitchcock style flock of birds.
With his on-going series titled “Emergent Behavior,” Jackson takes unexpected materials and places them in an even more unexpected environment.
Emergent Behavior consists of a series of photographs that are “swarms”– not locusts or bees, but everyday common objects like Post-It notes, cheese balls, and plates.
Seemingly whirling around in the wind, the airborne common objects are in the most unusual places. Things one would normally expect to see in the city or the country are nowhere to be found in Jackson’s images; he wants to take you outside of the expected and bend the rules of reality.
With the use of Photoshop, Jackson is able to create images that would be impossible to create without this technology. Reluctant, Jackson doesn’t want the use of Photoshop to be an integral of his creative process; however, the artist does not see Emergent Behavior possible without it.
Finding a happy medium with the temptation Photoshop brings to most artists, Jackson has promised himself to be as “in camera” as possible, reserving Photoshop for the times he wishes to remove unwanted elements from his overall image.
Some images are more enhanced then others, but Jackson strives for only minor tweaks to maintain the image’s integrity.
Emergent Behavior is nothing short of magic.
