FOR DAHMANE, artistic freedom only came when he was able to mould and manoeuvre the controls of Photoshop software on his computer and create complex photomontages from the kaleidoscopic strands of his imagination.

Like a director with the fundamentals of mis-on-sc�ne, he felt enriched by the power over the elements in his pictures. Dahmane had found the key to his own dreams: a way to set his models precisely where he wanted, against the exact background he had envisaged, even if that background was as much fantasy as reality. He had reached the nirvana phase that mystics enter when through the power of the mind they rise as if weightless into the air.

Born in Paris in 1959, Dahmane was always going to pursue a creative life. His mother writes poetry, his father is a painter and engraver. In this inspiring ambience Dahmane as a teenager developed a passion for photography. At an age when boys were still riding bicycles and dreaming of being soccer stars, he discovered girls, or more precisely, he became fascinated with the illusive magic of feminine curves, the beguiling charm of the female gaze.

Dahmane shot an endless, flickering stream of photographs that explore the infinite resources of a woman's sensuality: partially dressed, naked, in private places and in the great outdoors for all the world to see and admire. His erotic images, individual, instantly recognizable, always provocative, suggest moods of expectation and extreme femininity; he seldom shoots young girls with their coyness and inhibitions, but women at the height of their sexual charisma and sophistication: the femme fatale who possesses the camera as well as the voyeur who will ultimately see the image.

During a random journey to Vienna some years later, Dahmane was struck by a revelation and the splendid light shrouding the city enthused him to explore a new field which he termed "Fine Arts". From then on, he would meander incessantly through strange cities on a quest for the most secret compositions they could offer his eye, catching in turn the bleak coldness of a crossroads on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the heady romance of a broken street in Prague, or the brightness and colourful chaos of a New Delhi bazaar.

It is the journey not the arrival that touches us and, likewise for Dahmane, his creation of academic nudes became less satisfying as he found himself like a tap dancer on speed running over the same steps again and again. As each year of his nomadic wanderings went by, he found it more difficult to uncover interesting interiors, evocative landscapes, models who inspired him.

He was reaching a state of fatigue and despondency when technology came to the rescue. He discovered Photoshop and, like an opium smoker, sighed with inestimable relief. It was the Eureka moment, the Rubicon moment: here at last was the opportunity to capture his model and wire her into the depths of his spatial imagination.

Dahmane began creating photomontages, each one like a painting by an old master on canvas the result of a long and thoughtful process: the erotic nudes and exotic landscapes are first shot using a Leica reflex camera with a 50 mm lens loaded them with argentic film. The models are placed in the open air, in quiet romantic or, alternatively, energetic spaces during sessions that can last from sunrise to sunset, the mood and light changing as the camera shutter beats a tattoo through the long day.

Then the work begins. Dahmane mercilessly chooses from the innumerable snapshots the very few that he believes deserve to be printed. He does so himself on 30x40 cm baryte photographic paper, then scans the print again with a P.C. After masking in Photoshop (a word he whispers as do the faithful of their gods), he embeds his nude model into the appropriate background. He plays with the proportions, perspective, texture and grain, sharpness, luminosity, contrast, and the myriad small details that make the finished article an original work of art

At the end of this extended trial-and-error period that can often last months, Dahmane prints his final photomontage on velum paper with the same care he has applied to all the previous steps of the creation.

"My ambition," he says, "is to make each photograph as captivating as possible by concerning myself with various elements and combining them in order to achieve the best result: composition, eroticism, capturing materials and tones, faces, settings, lighting, poses, atmosphere and then, of course, feminine charm. Its essence, which resembles life's instantaneity and spontaneity, is what I want to retain in my photographs, as well as everything else."

Monsieur Dahmane is doing just that. And wonderfully so.