“The minute you pick up a camera you begin to lie or tell your own truth.”
—Richard Alvedon

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” ― Albert Camus

Montage is the technique of producing a new composite whole from fragments of pictures, text, or music. Your task is to combine images in intriguing and fantastic ways using PhotoShop to create impossible realities of your now imagination.

Montage Categories

Create 7 montages by combining 2 or more images to create surprising, intriguing, and delightful images.

1

You: Do a self portrait that expresses a hidden aspect of your personality

2

Impossible Texture: Add an incongruous texture to an object or person

3

The Future: Create an image of what you think the future will be

4

Surreal Environment: Using shifts of scale and surprising combinations create an intriguing and delightful environment

5

Theme: Invent a theme and create an montage to communicate it.

6 & 7

Do two more montages based on issues such as politics, race, gender, drugs, etc. The montage must depict an editorial position. It must convey an idea that projects an opinion or perspective.

Dimensions: 6″ x 6″
Color: Black and White

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“A photographic montage is the the explicit manifestation of the implicit fiction that is photography.”
― Gerry Cox

Due Thursday, February 23

1. Self portrait & texture montages printed, trimmed and ready to critique
2. At least one other montage in process as a PSD. Save your files as psd formats.
3. Blog Post in response to readings and videos. Category = “photomontage”

Due Tuesday, February 28

1. Completed first 5 montages of the 6×6 project on DropBox in your 05 folder. Do a  SAVE AS and make them into pdf files. Title them: 05_Self Portrait_lastname.pdf, 05_Texture_lastname.pdf, 05_Future_lastname.pdf, 05_Surreal_lastname.pdf, 05_Theme_lastname.pdf.
   
2. All 5 montages need to be ready to crit on screen only. DO NOT PRINT out. All Montages must be 6″ x 6″. If they are not then resize them. All Montages need to be in black and white only.

Due Thursday, March 2

1. Completed last two montages (6&7) of the 6×6 project on DropBox in your 05 folder. Do a  SAVE AS and make them into pdf files. Title them according to whichever topic you choose to depict, for example: 05_issues_lastname.pdf, 05_issues2_lastname.pdf, etc.
   
2. Both 6&7 montages need to be ready to crit on screen only. DO NOT PRINT out. All Montages must be 6″ x 6″. If they are not then resize them. All Montages need to be in black and white only.

Due Tuesday, March 7

1. All Completed 7 montages of the 6×6 project on DropBox in your 05 folder. Do a  SAVE AS and make them into pdf files.
   
2. All montages printed, trimmed and ready to critique in an envelope. All Montages need to be in black and white only and 6×6 in size.

This assignment will be a scavenger hunt.

There is a great tradition of foraging amongst designers. Mining visual inspirations is a form of research, the resulting collection becomes a catalog of available languages in use out there in the world. A specimen in the collection might represent a category of beauty, elegance, ugliness, goofiness, etc.; an historical or a cultural moment; a personal sentiment or an in-joke. Graphic Design is intimately connected with collecting – it often requires the selective arrangement of existing materials – typefaces, photographs, symbols, formats, images. In many ways, Design is a process of hunting, gathering and ordering of parts.

Collect 6 photographs of each of the 6 categories listed below. 

Select strong photographs with good contrast work best. Don’t over-intellectualize your selections, the range of representation is more important than the actual items, but choose images you like – you will be using them for a few weeks.

Categories:

01 Living Things

• animals, insects, fish, birds
• objects smaller than a breadbox
• food
• body part or person doing something
• building
• etc.

02 People

• Babies
• Nudity
• Hair
• Hands
• authority figure
• Eyes
• Full Person
• Face
• Teeth
• etc.

03 Objects

• Tools
• Clothes
• Houses
• Religious Symbol
• Radios, TV, or Computers
• Vehicles
• etc.

04 Natural

• Fire
• Moon
• Clouds
• Forest
• Water
• etc.

05 Places

• Roads
• Schools
• Walls
• Bathroom
• etc.

06 Themes

• Death
• machines
• Food
• Demons
• Marriage
• Flight
• Business
• Places
• Mountains
• etc.

Photographs only

Choose only pure, unedited photographs. Do not select images that have been photoshopped already, illustrations, 3D rendered scenes, or other artwork. It is important that you are the one doing the artistry. You may also shoot or use your own photography for this assignment.

Name your images as follows:

• gendron_people_01.jpg
• gendron_people_02.jpg
• gendron_people_03.jpg
• gendron_people_04.jpg
• gendron_people_05.jpg
• gendron_people_06.jpg
• gendron_natural_01.jpg
• gendron_natural_02.jpg
• etc.

Place 36 images in a folder called “6×6” in your “05_Montage” folder on DropBox

Due Tuesday, February 21st