About John, of Patent Artwork
My father was a keen photographer, had a darkroom and developed his own prints. Because I shared in his interest, I grew up learning these skills. I captured and developed photographs from an early age. With the advent of the digital darkroom I realized just how far I could push the boundaries of working with images. That prompted me to study graphic design and I added those skills to what I had already learnt about post processing film.
When my corporate job got downsized, I decided to start a new career doing something I really enjoyed. Photography was the obvious choice. I started creating a portfolio of work. My focus was on developing fine art photographic prints that were blends of multiple images. As I experimented with this approach I came up with the concept of my Patent Artwork prints.
What began as a search for textures to blend with my photographs, evolved into a unique collection of prints, of which each tells a fascinating story.  When I saw how well the drawings complimented the photographs of the inventions, I decided to create a series of Patent Artwork collages. These proved so popular I have now been creating them for over 10 years and adding new prints all of the time.
Prior to this, I had actually obtained a patent myself. I didn’t use a patent attorney but filed the application on my own. One of the steps you have to complete is a thorough search for prior art. This involves looking through earlier patents so you can demonstrate that your invention is novel and new. Carrying out this prior art search equipped me the skills to do the research necessary to create my prints.
From my earliest years I have always been fascinated by inventiveness and where things came from.  Add this to and incurable appetite for trivia and history and you will understand why I get so much pleasure from researching the inventions for my prints.
Once I had that light bulb moment of how cool these prints would be I looked to see what I could photograph that had a patent on it to make my first collage. Interestingly, it was my father’s camera that I found and it became my first print in the series. It seems so fitting that the very camera that started my photographic journey should be the subject of this series of prints and a thank you to my father for starting me down this artistic path.
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