Malcom Brooks

Malcolm Brooks is a multi-talented man who has sold his watercolors

PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY Malcolm Brooks surrounded by his panoramic works. and pen and ink sketches, designed a line of fleece hats that people still wear today and has developed a successful design business.

About 20 years ago he experimented with panoramic photography while in Wyoming because the landscape was so vast he could not capture the image he desired from a single frame. Then 10 years ago Brooks bought a digital camera and began shooting panoramic scenes of Nantucket locations, an art form he has become known for and plans to take to new levels.

The pictures are composed of approximately eight separate frames that overlap to allow him to electronically "stitch" them together and create a final panorama that possesses a captivatingly painterly quality. One of Brooks' photos of Miacomet Pond will be exhibited in the Land Council's "Love of the Land" benefit show this month at Cavalier Galleries, and he has others being shown this week at the Artists Association.

"Nantucket Safari" PHOTOS BY MALCOLM BROOKS The compiled photos, taken on a tiny Canon "Elf" camera, are sent to a company in the mid-west where they are printed on canvas that is stretched on a wooden frame in the same manner as traditional artist's canvases. Brooks does the final, finished framing.

"It's like a puzzle," he said. "It's a lot of layers and a lot of tricks to make everything line up."

Brooks, born in Pennsylvania, changed majors at Syracuse University a few times before finding his niche. He started out thinking he wanted to go into advertising, but changed his mind. Then, he tried painting as a major but decided against that, too, when he learned of a program called studio research in which a friend was enrolled. That course revolved around three-dimensional design, and Brooks produced furniture and laminated custom snowboards, among other projects he calls "functional sculpture."

"With that major I learned skills I still use today," he said.

Brooks first came to the island in 1986 to visit a friend. In 1987 he met the late builder Bruce Killen, and in 1988 Brooks moved here permanently and spent the summer shingling Killen's houses. All was going well for Brooks, who was an avid

"Main Street Snow" athlete, until a fateful day that September. Returning home through the moors after a mountain bikers' party, a bit tipsy by his own admission,

Brooks' bike struck an obstacle. He went flying over the handlebars and broke his neck, leaving him with permanent central nervous system impairment.

"That kind of changed the course of my life," said Brooks, seated at his computer where he spends a good deal of time each day on his business.

Though some people might have succumbed to self-pity after such a serious injury, Brooks is not a quitter. He returned to construction, but a recession struck. With jobs declining and his frustration over his disability increasing, Brooks turned to his art.

In 1995 he bought a computer and taught himself graphics programs that led to his Malcolm Designs enterprise and to perfecting his digital panoramic photography. His first panorama, "Nantucket Safari," of the plains off Milestone Road, sold quickly at a benefi t last summer. That inspired Brooks to continue to hone his art that, to him, represents an image truer to what the human eye sees than standard photo images.

"Miacomet" "You get a better feeling for the landscape when it's long," he said. "I think it captures the landscape better."

Describing himself as "an Internet junkie," Brooks said he is influenced by work he sees by other designers, which inspires him to increase his knowledge and expand the scope of his talent. In the meantime, Brooks is searching for a gallery to represent him, will keep creating his panoramas and plans to try producing moonlit landscapes as a new challenge.

"I need to get a better camera," he said with a laugh.

Brooks takes commissions for panoramas for homeowners wanting a dramatic photo of their view, for example, and can create them in lengths from four feet to 12 feet. His work can be viewed on nantucketpanoramas.com. I