Tips > Make a Collage
Runner in the City (c. 1926) by El Lissitzky
Description
Differences
Collages, or photomontages, are different from most photographic
pursuits.
Intensity
The creation of a body of work is often spread out over time.
Yes, the press of a shutter is quick.
Followed, perhaps, by knowing you got something.
But, photography is often like cross-country skiing.
Doing a collage can be more concentrated and intense—like downhill
skiing or snowboarding.
You're there at the creation, the click, and the creation, the
object, the print.
Perspective
In addition, collage allows a photographer to return to pre-Renaissance
conventions of art.
Before the development of perspective, a painting could incorporate
many views, most often a narrative, of a subject.
With collage, you can discard the single-point perspective of
the camera, and can play more easily with sequence, narrative, and
cubism.
Choices
There are lots of choices to be made when doing a collage or
photomontage.
1) Select a field/background.
You can use Photoshop to create collages on photographic paper.
However, you're not limited to a smooth or matte piece of white
photograph paper.
The substrate for your collage can be just about anything.
The background can be a color, a photograph,
drawing,
scan of some fabric with a pattern, or ?
2) Two dimensions, or three?
Photographers deal with three dimensions, but on a two-dimensional
surface.
Have fun with three, physical, dimensions, if you wish.
3) Level of craft required
Do you need/want perfection, or are "ragged edges" more appropriate?
Photographers, more often than artists using pigments, may have
a perfectionist streak.
Collage can make photography more like the finger-painting experience,
if you like.
4) Materials
The materials you use can be anything and everything, as long
as they don't rot.
For example, put a mirror in the middle, so the viewer's image
is part of the collage.
You can mix in non-photographic materials, such as fabrics, handmade
papers, clippings from newspapers and magazines, Velcro, items found
in the gutter (hubcaps, dead umbrella parts, etc.), string, and
so forth.
You can add pigments, such as spray paint (use a stencil?) or
pastels.
5) Play with the formal elements
These elements include lighting, composition, color, tone, depth,
volume, and so forth.
For example, your collage could be "illuminated" by light from
a certain direction.
Or, you could create depth by using reds, which advance, and
blues, which recede.
6) Be cinematic/narrative.
The left edge could start at 10 P.M. and end up at 5 A.M. on
the right edge.
7) Play with cubism.
Take pictures of someone from 3 perspectives.
8) Frame/borders
If doing a portrait, the frame/border could be the person's favorite
foods, activities, clothes, and so forth.
How about some dried pasta as a border?
Just kidding!
General
Collage
A famous essay by Clement Greenberg, an art critic
Cut And Paste: A History of Photomontage
Montage-a-Google
Artists
Romare Bearden:
ArtCyclopedia.com - Romare Bearden
National
Gallery of Art - The Art of Romare Bearden
Romare
Bearden Foundation
El Lissitzky:
El Lissitzky
"Monuments of the Future": Designs by El Lissitzky
Shana & Robert ParkeHarrison
Graham
Seidman
Kurt Schwitters:
ArtCyclopedia.com - Kurt Schwitters
CollageGallery.com
- Kurt Schwitters
Maggie Taylor
Copyright Issues
Copyright Casebook: Robert Rauschenberg and Pete Turner
Paper & Supplies
Kate's Paperie
Michaels
NY Central Art Supply
Photoshop Tutorials
Go to
Make
a Collage.
Learn Photomontage from a Pro Steve Caplin
