IMAGES

 

EARLY DAYS

My paternal grandfather was a painter and sculptor, and taught woodwork. My mother was also a sculptor, working mainly in ceramics. Her mother painted too. With these and other influences around, I developed an interest in the arts early on.

I began formalised training at 12, at an arts centre in Cardiff called Llanover Hall, where I took courses in painting, life drawing, ceramics and photography. This helped me to develop my abilities, exposed me to a range of methods of expression, and led to some achievements such as the school art prize at 16. Many of the themes of my work tended to be drawn from nature or abstract forms, although I also drew inspiration from music and caricature.

Nevertheless, this early artistic wave was not to be sustained, and I decided against going to art school, opting also for a different creative direction.


 

A SECOND WAVE

My second wave came after university, whilst sharing a Brighton flat with some art school graduates. I started working in bookselling, and began to produce window and in-store displays for promotions of publishers, books or authors.

I used a wide variety of media for the displays, including painting, drawing, sculpture and forms of 3D installation. This resulted in my becoming a de-facto 'artist-in-residence' for both shops I worked at, and also drew in plenty of interested custom.

Click on the gallery to the left to see examples of window displays produced during this period.

 

DIGITISATION

As the millennium turned, it began to dawn on me that a large-scale social shift towards digitisation was happening and if I wanted to be part of the future, I needed to get a computer and learn how to use it. In 2000, I got hold of my first PC and began retraining, taking on desktop publishing, graphic design and simple web design. 

This grounding mostly manifested itself in graphics work I created for either the non-profit organisations I was a part of or the music ventures I was involved in. I created CD covers, flyer, poster and brochure designs, and assorted montages for the Web.

My graphic designs are issued under the name of D1 Designs. Click on the gallery to the right to see samples of this work.

 

GLOBALISM PICTURES

Shortly after arriving in Tokyo in 2003, I finally got hold of my first digital camera and began to explore photography more deeply than I had previously done. I used the camera to document my travels as I explored parts of Asia and cities in other parts of the world. I also used it to capture other themes that intrigued me - architecture, street and public art, natural forms, scenery and interesting textures. My subject interests extend to photographing people too, although I tend to be a little shy of asking them and prefer to take unposed pictures. This leaves an area not yet thoroughly explored.

I issue most of my photos online under the name of Globalism Pictures. My Flickr site has over free 3,000 images available for use, available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. Visitors are free to use them in any way they like, including commercially, provided they attribute me as the original source (either as Dom Pates or as Globalism Pictures, preferably by also linking to one of these two hyperlinked URLs).

See below for some samples of my photography or go straight to the Flickr site to browse all.

 

ARCHITECTURE & BUILDINGS

 

NATURE & TEXTURES

 

PEOPLE

 

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