To say this is one of my least favourite unit is probably a bit of an understatement! for months I have briefly thought about montage and then within seconds I've moved on to something else. That's because my mind just goes blank when trying to think of ways I could stick things together in PS to make an image to convey a message. Some people are naturally good at things like this and enjoy doing it. I prefer my traditional methods with only a bit of digital thrown in. My brain must function in analogue as I try and make minimal use of digital editing with my images, unless I'm trying out something new. I had contemplated doing something with a political message but some of the things I thought of would not sit comfortably with most people so I decided to give them a miss.
Montages can be used and have been used to convey various political message and if done well they can be quite effective. In this digital age most things are created and distributed in cyberspace leaving very little need for creating anything physical that you can touch and feel. On-line social networking is a great tool for spreading a particular message worldwide at the touch of a button. Montages are also used in the creative industry for various projects and art work and by practitioners to develop their work. Lately there has been a surge in the number of mobile applications you can use to create various pieces of art using images and other paraphernalia.
For my montage I finally settled on a family theme, but also adding the other most important thing in my life - photography. Sometimes (maybe most of the time!) photography takes over and I end up not giving much time to my family.
Material for montage
I decided to use a few different pieces of material to put my montage together. I used a scanned negative from the film shoot we did for the Media Unit. I also used a scanned sunography print I did as part of the experimental unit. I also included one scanned print and three digital prints.
Message
All these photos represent what I truly value and hold dear in my life. The images are of my family and my achievements and progress in photography so far. My mum and my sister are the two people who have always been around in my life and are the biggest influence in my life. It's because of them I am who I am today. I had lots of independence to do what I wanted to do and was always encouraged to pursue my dreams, without feeling bound by any cultural restrictions. I was able to pursue my passion for photography because of the support and encouragement I received from my family. When my sister had her three boys, they became the most precious people in my life. I have hundreds of photographs of the three boys and only a handful of me with them, as I was always behind the camera. The family photo in black and white was taken abroad and is typical of how you would be required to pose in a studio. Looking very rigid without smiling at the camera and appearing very formal. The image of myself with the three boys was taken three years ago. It's one of those rare occasions when we were all in the same room.
I decided to use a few different pieces of material to put my montage together. I used a scanned negative from the film shoot we did for the Media Unit. I also used a scanned sunography print I did as part of the experimental unit. I also included one scanned print and three digital prints.
Message
All these photos represent what I truly value and hold dear in my life. The images are of my family and my achievements and progress in photography so far. My mum and my sister are the two people who have always been around in my life and are the biggest influence in my life. It's because of them I am who I am today. I had lots of independence to do what I wanted to do and was always encouraged to pursue my dreams, without feeling bound by any cultural restrictions. I was able to pursue my passion for photography because of the support and encouragement I received from my family. When my sister had her three boys, they became the most precious people in my life. I have hundreds of photographs of the three boys and only a handful of me with them, as I was always behind the camera. The family photo in black and white was taken abroad and is typical of how you would be required to pose in a studio. Looking very rigid without smiling at the camera and appearing very formal. The image of myself with the three boys was taken three years ago. It's one of those rare occasions when we were all in the same room.
Scan images
I scanned old black and white family picture but the resolution is pretty low in comparison to the digital images. The resolution was showing as 72 ppi and 548 KB in file size. As it was an old image it had some tearing and bits of dark marking around the edge. I repaired this in PS and saved the document as high resolution at 240 ppi which increased the size to 1.23 MB. The digital image of my two nephews is 96 ppi and 936 KB in size. The family image of my three nephews with myself is 72 ppi. They all fitted in well on the canvas regardless of resolution size as I varied the image size on the canvas.
These two images relate to the time when I received my medal for excellence from City & Guilds for my Level 2 Photography. It was one of my proudest moments. I felt such a great sense of achievement, considering a year ago I didn't know anything about photography. I still remember it well, it's a memory I will treasure for a long time. The image on the right is from the award ceremony which took place at the Roundhouse in London and was presented by Alex Jones. The image on the left is the award ceremony held by Oldham Lifelong Learning, where I did my Level 2. They made such an effort, showcasing my work, giving me flowers and a cake baked especially for me! it was a lovely evening. These were digital images so I had no problems with image size.
I used the scanned negative and the sunography to show where I am at this moment in time, in terms of my photography. I am gradually moving forward from digital processes and have become much more interested in alternative processes. It represents my progress and development in the world of photography. Both of these images were scanned at 300 dpi and were combined in PS. I used the layering technique to place one image on top of another and then reduced the opacity and used the mask to make parts of the other image appear. I adjusted hue saturation and brightness and control to bring out the textures. I then inverted the image to give it that sepia tone and to make the sunography more visible. I then flattened the image to save it.
Equipment
I used my Epson all in one printer at home to scan most of the images apart from the negative which was scanned in college. All images were uploaded on my pc for editing.
Image editing
To put my montage together I started with a blank new canvas. It was sized 12 x 8 inches. I knew I could always resize the canvas if all the images didn't fit in. I opened all the images in PS that I wanted to place on the canvas and dragged and dropped them on the plain canvas. I added a mask to rub out the parts I didn't want showing and reduced opacity to show parts of the other images. On the old family picture I also used the quick selection tool to use parts of the image rather than the full image. I used the brightness and contrast tool to highlight the layers and textures. I finally flattened the image and saved it as a low resolution JPEG to upload on the blog. The screen shot below shows my work in progress and how I used the layering technique.
Image editing
To put my montage together I started with a blank new canvas. It was sized 12 x 8 inches. I knew I could always resize the canvas if all the images didn't fit in. I opened all the images in PS that I wanted to place on the canvas and dragged and dropped them on the plain canvas. I added a mask to rub out the parts I didn't want showing and reduced opacity to show parts of the other images. On the old family picture I also used the quick selection tool to use parts of the image rather than the full image. I used the brightness and contrast tool to highlight the layers and textures. I finally flattened the image and saved it as a low resolution JPEG to upload on the blog. The screen shot below shows my work in progress and how I used the layering technique.
Montage
The final image isn't completely to my satisfaction but I did my best with my limited PS skills. Considering I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of doing something like this, I feel it's a half decent image but could benefit from some improvements. To improve the image I could have ensured the layers blended in more and looked less stuck on. However, it does show what I set out to do, which was to show the importance of photography and family in my life. It manages to highlight those key elements.
