The classical convention of photography rejects any tampering with an image as seen at the moment of exposure...

Taking courageous steps from this well trod-path is the contemporary photographer and printmaker Malcolm Leyland. Making combination prints from several images is the special interest of Leyland, who has redefined this technique to point of virtuosity. Unlike the nineteenth-century pioneers in this technique, Leyland combines disparate images and strongly contrasting light-effects to produce strange, often disquieting and ambivalent compositions. By playing with our world of reality and using commonplace subject matter, Leyland’s images reflect back to us a world of discord and unreality. Strict compositional balance reminiscent of experiments in cubist painting and collage, harmonise, the disquieting notes in Leyland’s work, and appeal to a true sense of aesthetic beauty and rationale.