Thomas Bangsted created Last of the Dreadnoughts over the course of a two-year period. What appears in this photograph as a cohesive composition is comprised of dozens of images captured at locations thousands of miles apart.
The eye-catching pattern on the ship, known as Dazzle camouflage, was widely employed by Allied forces during the First and Second World Wars as a means to confuse and disorient rather than hide from enemies. The striking patterns became obsolete from a strategic standpoint after the invention of radar: no longer could the wild contrast of zig-zag patterns protect the boats from harm.
Bangsted traveled to Texas to photograph the oldest dreadnought-class boat in the US, now permanently docked and serving as a museum, its hull painted a uniform gray. Working from archival photographs, he digitally re-created the distinctive Dazzle pattern on the image of the dreadnought. He then built an environment for the boat in its new/old guise, piecing together images of the sky in Wisconsin, the shoreline of the Hudson, and several other locations.
Bangsted utilizes both digital and analog photographic techniques, but his method and eye fall in line with a painter’s artistic approach. And although Last of the Dreadnoughts is crafted from countless components and drastic creative intervention, the result seems far from over-wrought: rather, Bangsted has created a fabrication that communicates a new kind of truth.