More fun with photomontages

Creating photomontages is a great way to hone your computer skills. The medium itself is a natural for this type of work. You don't need the full Photoshop program, I do most of my computer work using Photoshop Elements 2.0. Try it, you'll have fun creating weird scenes !



WIND, FIRE AND RAIN was created by using four photos. When conbinimg photos you must take care that the lighting direction of each one is the same to make the scene fairly plausible. The background is a photo taken in New Mexico. The dock was photographed in Saugatuck, Michigan and the fire was part of a shot of a car on fire in New York City. My wife's hat was added to simulate wind.



Again, a New Mexican background with the flat foreground added. The strange box around the stop sign was just a happy accident. When I outlined the sign I neglected to go all the way out to the border of the photo, I liked the effect, so I left it.



PHONE SPIDER
The background is a shot of the Lake Michigan beach near my home in Sawyer. The public phone was taken in New York City and the spider was photographed in it's web outside of my studio window.



THE WINDOW
One day a flying bird hit one of my windows. It lay on the ground stunned, so I went out and placed it on a safe perch before my outdoor cats found it. The bird stood up but was still dazed and couldn't fly away. I rushed in and got my camera and took a couple of close up shots before it flew off. Later I conceived the idea for this montage.



TWO FLOATING OBJECTS
This montage is made up of three photos, again a New Mexican background and two egg shots.



COMPOSITION IN ORANGE AND GRAY
A gourd cut in half adds an interesting color shape to this composition. You can combine rather mundane photographs to create very interesting scenes.

It's relatively easy to create photomontages on the computer

No more darkroom, chemicals, enlarger, scissors or glue ! The computer is the perfect medium for producing flawless photomontages.




What's difficult is coming up with interesting ideas. Actually, ideas can come from just about anywhere, this series was prompted by my cat's red ball. I wondered what the red ball would look like in unusual environments and situations, so I dug through my photo files and found some interesting background possibilities.





Here is a photo taken in Lucca, Italy while vacationing. I had fun working out the positioning of the red balls to create an interesting illusion.





Another strange looking scene, but a rather a fascinating image.





The background photo was taken out of an airplane window. I duplicated the final image and positioned it behind the foreground objects creating an unusual visual effect.





I wondered how the floating balls would look in a city scene and here they are in the Big Apple. Anything can happen in New York !





Another weird composition, an interesting combination of objects. The Ethiopian Coke bottle was brought back from a trip to Addis Ababa. The orange pepper adds a nice touch of color.
It's great fun to experiment with photomontages, composing unrelated images together can create outlandish images. This group is part of a series of limited edition prints that have been exhibited in galleries and museums.
These images were all created using Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0. The computer is the perfect medium for photomontage

Digital photo experiments

On my HARRY BORGMAN ART BLOG I am posting the illustration and graphic design work that I have produced through the years. Here I will concentrate on my experimental art. This group of work consists primarily of digital art but some of my paintings will also be included. I have done a lot of experiments with photography, collages as well as photomontages. The computer medium is especially suited for this type of work.



These experiments are all based on high contrast black and white photos like the above image where I have only added bands of color to create a strong design.



On this image I have added some gray tones to a few of the trees as well as some bright areas in the background to indicate sunlight.



By just adding simple color areas to these four photos I have created interesting designs.



Another dramatic design using only three colors using the white areas as a strong design element.



Using unusual color combinations can be quite effective. With the computer you can easily do several versions of the same scene until you are satisfied with your design.



Even adding a simple element such as a square or rectangle can quite effective.



Here is a poster that I did using only four flat colors.



Another simple poster design using few colors on which I added the snow. Working with high contrast photos is a great way to practice and develop your color and design skills.