montage

Although the above picture has many great aspects, the section that inspired me the most was his hair becoming the outline of a tree.  The fact that the transition was both so seamless, and realistic considered how far-fetched the idea is, was just magnificent.  Putting the rest of the elements of the picture aside, I set forth to  attempt to blend two completely unlike things seamlessly together.

The reason I chose to use the bass guitar as the background image is simple enough; I love playng music.  Plus, since I enjoy multiple instruments, it allows me an opportunity to make a series of montages following the basic instrument theme.  As far as the spider goes, I was out taking pictures for my previous idea for this assignment (which I eventually abandoned) when I noticed the arachnid in the picture.  After taking several shots, I returned to view them on the computer and was amazed by how great the detail was, particularly the glowing abdomen.  I knew that it would be foolish not to include such a beautiful picture in a work at some point, and there is no time better than the present.  In discussion with some friends we all commented on how hideous, yet striking, the hairy legs were when viewed up close.  This conversation then inspired me to extend the legs, (and later the fangs) to form the strings, this being the element that actually made the montage surreal.  Naturally the spider looked as if I’d cut and pasted it, so I added a shadow, rather tediously, and the picture looked incredible.  The idea to use records as the background just added to the theme, and somehow the spider really captured the mysterious majesticness that is inextricably intertwined with rock and roll.

If I had to do this picture again, the only real change I’d make is regarding the shadow.  I spent an entire day working on adding elements into the picture where the records are that I ultimately decided complicated the picture too much.  This is relevant because it took away the time I could have used to perfect the shadow.  It looks realistic enough, but there are obviously lapses that a trained eye would recognize as a photoshop error, and the untrained eye would simple feel that something was astray.  Because of the way I layered the pieces of the spiders leg together to create the strings, I ended up with strange overlaps on the strings’ shadows that took most of the class to fix.  Also, I couldn’t get them to extend to the top of the picture.  I ended up cropping out the top of the bass neck simply so that the shadows would extend to the frame of the picture.  This new square picture really substracted from the sense of depth that was provided when the neck carried what seemed endlessly into the background.  I assure you that this highly disappointed me, and although it still turned out as what I believe to be a compositionally solid, and at least intriguing picture, I wish that I had been capable of perfecting the shadow and keeping the picture rectangle.  I believe that it then would be worthy of a frame, and a place on one of my bandmate’s walls.

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