Photo Collage

While attending Rochester Institute of Technology, I attended an art appreciation class taught by Ron Richardson. A very enthusiastic and energetic teacher. I learned so much and was exposed to such a variety of styles and artists. One that impressed me was David Hockney. Mr. Hockney is primarily a painter but works with photography too. He uses photo collage to portray scenes and time passage. Below are my collages inspired by Mr. Hockney and Mr. Richardson.

Hansel and Gretel

This is a multi media collage. It contains more than 40 3x5 photos. Illustrations scanned into photoshop and added as part of the scene. Overall size about 25" X 18" Mounted 30" X 20"

This is commissioned work for my best friend, Patty Hamilton-Dowd.

Wedding in the park

Carl and Debbie Smith, Summer 2000

Commissioned by Robert T. Nilsen

Liberty Pole

This was done as an assignment for Ron Richardson's class. It is my first collage and the one I like best. The subject is the Liberty Pole on Main Street, Rochester, NY which has always been controversial. People here are conservative in their tastes (I guess) and many do not like the sculpture. It is a wire sculpture that, to me, resembles sails. There is only one but when I photographed it I did it twice. You can see it "bending" left and right but in reality it is one straight pole. It used to have eternal flames but they were extinguished a long time ago. So much for eternity!!!

The Plaza around it is a favorite place for skate boarders and this night scene has a few of them.

I like the cubist effects of these collages. The different degrees of light were done by changing the settings on the camera.

South Avenue Tower

The next two were cut from contact sheets. Each image is about one inch wide. The over all sizes are tiny compared to the ones above.

This scene was done on my first visit to my daughter (far right in the photo) Leah's new apartment. There happened to be a fire in the building across the street. No one was hurt and the fire was small. It gave me an opportunity to do a sort of journalistic collage.

Lake Avenue Tower

I had a friend that lived on the top floor of a building like the one above and this was photographed from his window. Not a pretty view but interesting none the less. At the far right top of the image you can see the main office building of Eastman Kodak Co. founded here in Rochester NY. At the bottom a bus stopping for passengers.