FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY has come of age and fine art photographic prints are now in high demand at auctions and galleries worldwide. The digital age has finally given to photographers, the creative freedoms previously reserved for painters and fine art digital photographic prints viewed alongside traditional darkroom black and white photographs are now given equally favourable reviews. The digital domain has almost 're-invented' photography and has been eagerly grasped by photographers who felt the technical constraints of the old analogue processes.

One such practitioner is the photographic artist, Dominic Rouse described by BW Magazine as a "master of digital manipulation" and whose superbly crafted black and white silver prints were lauded by the editor of the respected British Journal of Photography as "masterpieces". His exquisite prints are seamless transitions between the world of contemporary digital art and the timeless qualities of black and white photography.

Brooks Jensen, the editor of LensWork Publishing described Rouse as "one of the most interesting photographic artists working today" and compared his photographs to the paintings of Pieter Breugel, Hieronymus Bosch and Rene Magritte.

Rouse's work is certainly dark in tone and has a surrealist edge that does bear comparison with the likes of Magritte but it extends beyond that. His beautiful prints possess a quality that demands that the viewer suspends both belief and disbelief in unison. Whilst many artists describe their art as the search for 'Truth and Beauty'. Rouse has said that he is more interested in "exposing the fallacy that is Truth" and is of the opinion that "Beauty is measured in degrees of deceit; the greater the Beauty, the greater the deceit."

Regardless of his intentions, a Dominic Rouse fine art photographic print is indeed a thing of beauty, worthy of serious consideration by the connoisseurs and collectors of FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY.

Simone du Crois (Paris, May 2007)