Bill Major

On Monday morning an unexpected surprise is waiting in the office – a picture from Bill Major, who specialises in Photoshopping together impossible views of wonderful buildings. We used one of his shots, of a section of the High Street, for a cover in June, and felt no hesitation about using this picture to grace the front of this week’s magazine. I rang him to thank him and took the opportunity of asking how the hell he does it. “It amuses me to take pictures which are impossible to see with the naked eye, and impossible to take with one click,” he says. “The art is in seeing the opportunity, in working out what would make a good subject. Then I take all the pictures I need on a digital camera. This may be between 200 and 500 shots. I make sure there are virtually no people in shot, or cars, which gives the pictures a timeless quality.”

He then spends an awfully long time on his computer doing the painstaking part - putting it all together. “I have to fit all the pieces together, straightening things up so there are no joins, and nullifying the perspective. It’s not unlike painting a picture, though the brushstrokes are photos.” He takes very high-resolution shots, so the pictures can be massive - up to twelve feet long. I ask about the sky in the latest Lewes picture. “I took it from a hill near my home in Pontefract,” he laughs. “The funny thing is, skies are in perspective, too, so you have to patch them together as well, or they simply look wrong.” AL

For more information you can contact Bill here