Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Photomontage: Shift scale on purpose, putting small figures beside enormous objects
- Type
- Set in Photomontage's manner (Cut headlines from existing print and paste them at unmatched sizes), and let Tableau Photography's lettering (Make the text in the frame as a prop rather than borrowing a typeface) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Photomontage's material (Magazine and newspaper cuttings, paste, rephotography, seams kept or hidden); bring in exactly one thing from Tableau Photography (Built sets or models, cinematic lighting, large format shot and printed big).
- Colour
- Build on #e6dfd0, #b83b2f, #1d1b19 and admit one accent from #e4ddd2, #92705e, #2c2623.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Photomontage Copying only the cutting and pasting leaves fragments side by side with no collision, and the criticism the method existed for never lands.
- Tableau Photography Staging that only imitates a natural record leaves the assumption that photographs record reality untouched, and the whole reason for constructing the scene disappears.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Photomontage (technique, 1910s–) and their accent from Tableau Photography (style, 1970s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Photomontage exists for: turning political or advertising rhetoric against itself with its own pictures, or showing scenes and relations that never existed with the force of photography. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Photomontage - Cut-out photographs - Mixed scales - Visible seams - Reused print matter Composition: Shift scale on purpose, putting small figures beside enormous objects. Type and lettering: Cut headlines from existing print and paste them at unmatched sizes. ## Accent comes from Tableau Photography, used sparingly - A single large print made to hang - Figures who never look back at you - Interiors and streets built to the last corner - Lighting borrowed from cinema Let one material quality come from it: Built sets or models, cinematic lighting, large format shot and printed big. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #e6dfd0, carry the structure in #b83b2f and #1d1b19, and let a single accent come from #92705e. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: rebellion, exhilaration, play, luxury. ## What goes wrong - Photomontage: Copying only the cutting and pasting leaves fragments side by side with no collision, and the criticism the method existed for never lands. - Tableau Photography: Staging that only imitates a natural record leaves the assumption that photographs record reality untouched, and the whole reason for constructing the scene disappears. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Photomontage 1910s– / Technique / Photographic Techniques
Cuts and rejoins photographic fragments, assembling relations and critical meanings that never existed in the original reality.
- Tableau Photography 1970s / Style / Photography Movements
Assembles the scene before the shutter and holds it in a single print made to hang like a painting, its figures acting as if no viewer were there.
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