J.G. Ballard's 'The Drowned World' Artwork

This amazing book by J.G. Ballard was first published in 1962. Reading it today it feels more ahead of its time than ever. Beautifully crafted and immersive and paranoid like none other. I can't recommend a read enough. Well, over the years I imagine a few people have tried to recreate scenes from it. From a scoot around the web I've seen a few bits and bobs and I'm hoping to add something of value to the various works. I remember a friend had a beat up copy of an illustrated edition which I never saw in entirety - a mere flick-through at his house. It stayed with me. Well, now I'm inspired to create my own versions, using parts of the book to create the scenes, I'll be doing some crunching around of real photos in and around London I take to produce the images you see here. Would love to hear what fans of the book make of them, and hopefully inspire a few others to take a read. Humankind was on the cusp of extinction in this haunting piece of literature. Some part of me feels we're always at some kind of fork in the road as a species, and perhaps, never more so than now. I guess it would be a total honour if one of these works could be used as a book cover for a future reprint... or indeed a future 'illustrated' edition. ;-) P.S. Just noticed there's a special 50th Anniversary Edition hardcover available. Grab a copy here before they sell out. For the paper back edition get one here. It's the words that count, and the rich pictures they'll paint in your fertile mind! Enjoy. James Elliot | April 2013.

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Not added a new one for a long time but managed to do this one I was pleased enough with to post up. This was taken from an office somewhere and some dept away day or other in my day job.

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Primrose Street, London.

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More jungle required

Having had some time to have a break from making these I’ve got some ideas on how to blend some of the techniques I like the best from the ones I’ve done so far.

I’m going to start working on some new ones now.

I might also remove a few of these and then work them up into a result I’m more happy with and re-post.

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Isle of Dogs and epic sky.

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From a tall building near Tottenham Court Road / St. Giles area of town.

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View from Monument.

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Strata Tower, Elephant and Castle

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After the dredging. An old fountain emerges as the water level drops in what was formerly known as the Shad Thames area of London. Water steams off hot metal.

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View from Tower 42, 24th Floor. Rooftops and streets of a sunken London still visible underwater on a still day. Sun going haywire.

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Few more words about this blog...

I thought it was about time I gave a bit more info about these pictures and why / how I make them.

I started playing around with the idea of making post-apocalyptic versions of photos I took a while back - and you can see some early incarnations of a few I did on another tumblr blog I post to sometimes.

Then it occurred to me that the way they were starting to shape up with the water effects it would be a nice fit with The Drowned World. Seeing as I live and work in London I thought this would be a strong concept to pursue and a nice little focused creative project to get stuck into.

So that is when I thought I would get a bit more stuck in with the addition of raging solar discs / flares and tropical flora and fauna along with the flooded stuff and really 'Drowned World' 'it up'.

All the better because of my love of the book and (whether what I produce in this, and various other creative projects I have on, is good or not) I am usually in some kind of creative abundance mode and find it hard not to be getting something out of myself.

I also want to work in some more characters and you can see a first foray into that with the Beatrice Dahl 'through a window in the apartment' pic and the white-suited Strangman.

The characters is something I want to pursue further, in any case. So watch out for more of these. As well as this I want to explore the dream scenes and create more of those weird 'throbbing sun' ones, like 'Barbican Centre Apartment Dreaming 2145' and 'Artifacts of the Dredged Lagoon'.

What's also missing is some of the vehicles in the book, so I will be working in more boats, hydroplanes and helicopters soon. Maybe even a floating science station! I've also made a start on some ideas for 'inside' shots, within the flooded buildings.

The pics you see although I'm broadly happy with I feel are early incarnations of a style and approach I'm getting more confident in applying. So in other words - I think there much better and much more to come.

Thanks to everyone who has followed the blog and also liked, reblogged or otherwise shared the work. That's really humbling for me and makes me want to keep going.

I took a load more fresh photos yesterday from a good vantage point in central London. Up the Monument, to be exact, where I discovered heights are probably not my thing. Despite the fact that I was quite aware that I could throw myself against the net that cages you in and not go over, I was pretty nervous and the primal 'stay away from the edge' was prevalent and it took a bit of convincing to get the lens of the camera through the net holes so they were not in shot.

Kind of lame, I guess, but as I've gotten older heights just agree less and less with me. Below is me looking nervous, heart rate raised not only by the 311 steps to the top on a pretty warm day.

In terms of how I make the pics it varies but I'm learning restraint is key as the pics get crunched through a number of processes. I always start with real photos that I take myself, mostly on my commute to and from the office but any excuse really when I'm in other parts of town. I will plan a day off at some point to gather a whole load of source photos I want in one session.

Then once we have a good seed photo, we'll have some Photoshop in the mix, some hand drawing using a stylus on an iPad, and a number of iPhone apps and other photo effect crunchers.

In some photos we also have spat out some movie files which I have turned into the animated gifs. So, it's a real mix of techniques and quite a complicated process which is constantly evolving.

I'm working on a new piece now which I hope to have up soon so please check back - I hope it will be one of the best yet. In the meantime enjoy the pics that are here and please reblog / like / share or follow! Really do appreciate it.

And if you haven't read the book yet, it comes very highly recommended.

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Barbican Centre apartment dreaming, 2145.

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City of London, view from Triton Court, Finsbury Square. Full on jungle. Absurd temperature.

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Artifacts of the dredged lagoon.

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Barbican Centre jetty.

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Triassic dream zone.

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Barbican waterfalls. Strangman.

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Remnants of London, Bank. Bright solar flares through steam. The silt-caked platforms of Bank Underground station lie deep below the waterline.