JAMES ELLIOTT AT THE TIME HE CREATED METASPHERE



	Autoportrait With Scarlet Jacket 1974 Portrait of an evolving master, taken around the time he created Metasphere. Seen here wearing one of his scarlet jackets. He created 'Metasphere' in a similar colour. Elliott always loved colour and never worked in black and white. Elliott always gives monochrome a low level of colour, as he finds actual black and white inaesthetic. The artist always considered colour exponentially more powerful. He views monochrome as Photography's technological work in progress. The 'pub wisdom' of the day was that black and white was 'serious' and colour was 'commercial'. The truth was the opposite as magazines were mostly in black and white, so the market was for that. Elliott was not, however, a commercial photographer. He was an artist from square one. The argument was also that you could process your own black and white. Exceptionally, Elliott created his own colour originals in his own colour darkroom. Virtually unheard of. Massively expensive to do, but superior. His darkroom contained equipment that cost about the same as a Ferarri. Try writing that off against a small number of prints. So the Metaspheres are all hand made. He still colour prints everything today, even the massive giclée prints. Although technically much easier than colour darkroom, they too, have their own learning curve, especially if you want to get the best out of them.