IT’S ABOUT TIME. There's an artist living in New York who looks at photography as an art form and sees ‘time’ in a new way. His name is David Reibman and he invented a combination of photo ‘montage’ and ‘collage’ that he calls “Mollage.” He creates unique multidimensional panoramic art. David’s work is a progression of images, making sequential stories, revealing time which does the opposite of trying to stop it, which many photographers attempt to do. With his Mollages, David has created a unique way of visualizing time.

“I recall,” David said, “the first photograph I took, many years ago, was a little blurry, kind of like my blurry recollections of it.” And yet, in retrospect, it was a very important beginning for him. He used an old box camera, at New York City’s Central Park Zoo, gazing through a frosted window in his simple Kodak, barely seeing what was to become his first amazing creations, in black & white.” Real magic started in David’s primitive bathtub darkroom, as his first roll of film was developed.

Not long after his 10th birthday and this initial vision, he received his first pair of eyeglasses. Through his new “looking glasses,” many more rolls of film were exposed.

Those years of his youth were spent revealing new photographic exposures and they each grew as experiments in his make-shift darkroom. Precarious trays were balanced on top of the bathtub, and with his very first, cheap ‘light bulb’ enlarger teetering on the toilet, he was able to produce unusually beautiful blurry images. The process of rocking Kodak paper back and forth in chemicals, inside his darkroom trays, specially lit by an amber light, was enchanting. In that room, David fell in love with making ART…his way!

During his late teens, he graduated up to a 35mm camera. It became a weapon in his defense against the city. He carried this camera wherever he went and was always on the lookout for a great shot. Later, at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) near Los Angeles, he discovered and created works in color. With the beautiful California sun, David developed a new color palette. At the Cooper Union Art School in New York City, David and his classmates argued conceptually about the 35mm “frame.” They were trying to make it into more than the rectangular picture, “breaking-out” with sprocket-holes and black borders. David was looking for more.

He discovered a set of panoramic postcards of the Duluth, Minnesota skyline. Because of these two cards, in 1977, he began a comprehensive study of composite images. At first, he tried to duplicate precise panoramas but then began to experiment with different image sequences.

Frames are exposed at different moments, imitating the way we glance-around. Stories emerge from those sequences, with people appearing repeatedly. While everything must work together, success is dependent on each frame. Complex layers are not always realized at first, but, over time can be discovered.

This continually evolving Art form, showing stories in the past, portends the future. David is constantly challenging our western concepts of time.

DAVID Creates Unique Panoramas in Multidimensional Photographic Art.