Last week, I posted about Thomas Allen’s recent work for an article about memoirs in Oprah Magazine. Allen cuts people and things from books, carefully folds them into a scene, and then photographs it all with a meaningful depth of field. His work for O Magazine took over a month of work, more than a 40 count box of X-ACTO blades, and over 700 digital samples. The completed project included 6 (amazing) photos — how’s that for hard work?!

Thomas Allen has generously given me four of the digital camera proofs that didn’t “make the cut” for the O Magazine article. These aren’t printed or published anywhere else at the moment, so I am incredibly thrilled to be the one to share them with you!

You’ll find a version of the photo above on page 182 of the August 2008 issue of O Magazine. In the final photo, the book is red, no title is visible, and you catch a glimpse of woman’s arms and legs going through the screen door and coming out the other side of the book. I actually really like the stillness of the photo above. In my mind, the open screen door and the book title generate the feeling of a peaceful summer day in the country.

A photo like the one above does not appear anywhere in the issue. It was probably abandoned in favor of something else.

Although this particular boy in the water doesn’t appear anywhere in the article, a similarly vintage family of three plays in the water of a book cover on page 179 of the magazine. The close cropping of this photo differs from most of Allen’s work — it gives a real sense that you’re in the scene, but doesn’t reveal that the pieces are cut from books.

The final version of this photo is shown below, at right; the proof that didn’t make the cut is shown above (and at left below). As you can see, three dogs were added, a new book was used, and an entirely different bed was constructed for the final photo. The two photos are very different, but work around a similar idea. Both of these were taken for a section of the O article called “Three Dog Nights” about Abigail Thomas’s memoir A Three Dog Life.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures above! If you want to see more Thomas Allen photos, I’ve spent some time hunting down the top five places where you can satiate yourself (Thomas Allen is hard to google, because about 10 other famous people share his name. Also, right click the links to open in new window):

  1. His gallery at mnartists.org. This is probably the most comprehensive online collection of his work. You can even subscribe via RSS feed; that way you’ll know when he adds photos (which he did last week). (Some of my favorite photos here include: Red, Topple, Book End, alright, this list could go on forever….)
  2. His book, Thomas Allen: Uncovered. (You can see a few pages from the book on the amazon.com page.)
  3. Magazines. These include the August 2008 issue of Oprah Magazine (available on newsstands now, or available for purchase online, or you can check out my post about the issue here). He also provided all of the art (in conjunction with graphic-design-great Chip Kidd) for Zoetrope’s Fall 2006 issue. Much to my dismay, the issue has been sold out for awhile, but you can catch a few glimpses at the insides by clicking on the articles and stories on the online page.
  4. Book Covers. Thomas Allen did covers for quite a few James Ellroy novels including Suicide Hill, Blood on the Moon, and Because the Night.
  5. ThomasAllenOnline.com. Okay, so this is Thomas Allen’s personal blog, so perhaps it should be first, but it’s only occasionally updated. Nonetheless, it provides important news like when his brother found his work in a porn magazine called Leg World.

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[tags] thomas allen, tom, photography, books, different, pulp, vintage, cowboy, seductive, romance, sci-fi, art, crafts, cutting, cut-outs, pages, paper, design, oprah, novels, cover, uncovered, unique, cool, stacks, creative, magazines, photographer, photos, pictures, artists [/tags]

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