Photomontage

Something I feel strongly about?

Societal inequality

• Rich/poor
• gay/straight
• male/female
• young/old

I do find it quite distracting to look through magazines and newspapers for images as I find articles I didn't read the first time round then loose the flow. I started just trying different ideas with the pictures I could find.

 I don't think the ones above are very exciting though I quite like this one (below)

 I tried editing it a bit with Paintshop

 

You can see from the  above that I'm far too attracted by figures. This could create a problem with the people involved ( if anyone reading this is offended please let me know and I will remove them) but also I think using objects as metaphors would be more effective.

 I guess there are two quite distinct ways of approaching this brief. One is to use available images and manipulate them to change their meaning, the other is to think of a meaning and find images to represent it. I tried the second approach with the pictures below. I was working on the difference in housing between rich and poor. I like this view of a tower block taken from Google streets by tilting the camera up.

 I think the biggest problem with this is that I love it as an image in its own right so I don't want to add much, maybe a super yacht?

Trouble is you can't tell whether its a crappy block of flats or a luxury development

So I tried to create contrasts at street level

I've not really got into my stride with this project yet, I need a better idea to run with.

I tried to do some research and got distracted and excited by Varoom http://www.varoom-mag.com/ and Reportager http://reportager.uwe.ac.uk/ especially Jamie Bradford, David Sparshott, Olivier Kugler, Julia Midgeley & Anne Howeson all of whom are completely unrelated to my current task....

 

There is this image http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Articulos_electricos_para_el_hogar_-_Grete_Stern%2C_1950.jpg  by Grete Stern which says much more than I have managed

I think to make an impression you need to be quirky and a bit humorous, think Banksie. There are some great ideas here http://presentation7.wordpress.com/ I particularly like "Broken Missile" by Peter Kennard, and John Heartfield's image of a body draped on a swastika.

I searched Inequality and found in  a Guardian Editorial from 2008 the phrase "Gambling with other peoples money" which lead to;

I prefer the one on the left but neither has much punch.

My preferred image is this


The change was quite simple, the reclining figure was advertising a sofa, she is riding on a man transporting some sort of clay. He was already burdened but she adds to that.

I have struggled with this task I'm short of punchy sharp ideas, maybe I've chosen too wide a subject to work with and should have focused on something more specific. It has asked me to work in a completely different way to what I am used to.