About the Artist
John Whatmough in the Santorini caldera, Greece.
A Member of
At age 25, I am currently Corporate Technical Officer of JTW Incorporated, a Hudson New Hampshire based computer consultancy. I have worked on projects varying from internet websites, corporate intranets, programming, interface design, multimedia, graphic design, photo enhancement, photography, and technical writing.
When two Swiss astronomers announced in late 1995 that they had discovered the first planet orbiting another sun-like star, I was fascinated by the implications. Not only was the planet extraordinary purely because it existed, but the orbital and mass data spoke of a planet unlike any that had been imagined before. As more planets were discovered, I decided to create speculative images of these new worlds using computer rendering software. I created a website, called Extrasolar Visions, which contained both the hard data and the speculations.
What started out as a pet project became a business as I began to receive e-mails requesting the use of my speculative images for documentaries and articles about extrasolar planets. My artwork has been seen in the NOVA episode "Hunt for Alien Worlds," part three of the PBS series "Mysteries of Deep Space," and the May 1997 issue of Scientific American. In 1997, I became a member of the International Association for Astronomical Arts.
Due to the growing interest in my work, I began to expand my artistic subjects to include planets of our own solar system and imaginary worlds of science fiction. If you are interested in using my images for publications, or to see my work to date, please visit the Image Usage section of Extrasolar Visions.
Influenced at the age of six by Carl Sagan's television series "Cosmos" and later by the Voyager encounters with Saturn and its moons, I have been a long time follower of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and planetary science. Although I originally planned to pursue a career as a particle physicist, I became involved with computer technology six years ago and have remained in the industry ever since.