Photo Collage Project

Project Brief

For this project we were asked to create a photo collage that illustrates something about a person or place. This photographic portrait collage had to focus on mapping time and space. In concern to space we were expected to explore perspective and the transformation of a 3-D space onto a 2-D image. Both of these concepts had to be explored in one way or another. We were told to learn more about photography, both by studying and participating in it. We were also assigned to read numerous articles and watched several videos that would give us new perspectives on photography.

Project Reflection

Before this project I was never very interested in photography. I took pictures on vacations and used it casually to document events and art projects. After this project, I can honestly say I have a much deeper appreciation for the discipline. The articles we were assigned to read gave me a better understanding of what it was to be a photographer and also about what photographs really mean to us as people. Through the experience of building this collage I was faced with many challenges and processes that I was before unfamiliar with. Overall this project has been a very educational experience. I am by no means about to switch to be a photo media major but I am able to appreciate photography and hopefully integrate it with my future projects and studies

I started the project off thinking that I was going to do something involving pictures of my laptop. I was originally pretty set on this idea but I was soon drawn to a new unanticipated direction that yielded nice results. I combine two of my original ideas involving a spectrum of emotions and a meal with my friend. Using numerous photos taken from different angles and locations I stitched together a collage of my friend conversing around a round table with different “shards” of herself.

The end result was rather rewarding and it was a fun project that had a lot of potential and creative freedom attached. The final product ended up being a lot bigger than I expected. It was quite a task to assemble and fitting all of the pieces together was like putting together a giant complex puzzle.

If I had could go back and do this project again I would take some time to do at least one more photo shoot and test collage before moving onto my final one. The project I took on require a great deal of planning and I defiantly could of done a little more of that. It surprised me how much being an inch over could drastically change your lighting and perspective completely.

One issue I ran into was maintain a balance between creating a visually interesting image and creating something that was easy to understand and look at. After my big test collage I was worried that I wasn’t going to have enough color. As a result, I overcompensated for this in my next, and final, photo shoot. This helped add interest but also introduced a lot of chaos that was hard to knock down. To balance this out I mounted it on white poster board and eliminated some of the objects on the table. As a whole I am very pleased with how this project turned out.

 Final Product: