"Tales of Heroines"
Raised in a family alongside four brothers and the absence of sisters, my eyes were opened by my daughter’s growing up experiences from a girl to a teenager to a young woman. As a result, I am in awe of determined young women like my daughter who meet and negotiate both small daily hurdles and major life challenges. Their determination, empathy, and ingenuity in navigating a complex world make them heroines in my eyes. My photographic series Tales of Heroines is a collection of stories about the lives of young women told through portraits. The subjects squarely face the viewer and the images employ a consistent format with a low horizon line, vertical orientation, and arched framing which invites the viewer into the story. Using magic realism, the power of storytelling emanates from the details in the photomontages. The stories are intentionally provocative enticing the viewer to engage with questions about the Tales of Heroines.
Photographer Tom Chambers was raised in the Amish farm country of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Tom completed a B.F.A. in 1985 from The Ringling School of Art, Sarasota, Florida majoring in graphic design with an emphasis in photography. Since 1998 Tom has exhibited photomontage images from ten photographic series both nationally and internationally in twenty five solo exhibitions and over seventy group exhibitions and art fairs.
