Morning Light

OK, grab yer hats and hold on, time for a rant!

I had an interesting comment from a fellow blipper yesterday:-

For a second or two, you caught me, "what the heck is that?" Then I realised it was a montage.

I very rarely look in the Blip forums - too many folk wanting somewhere to have a rant about nothing much of consequence. But last time I did, they were on about those terrible people that post montages, "Yeah, tighten the rules!" etc. Of course, should there be any change to the rules, the same folk will have an equally ferocious/vociferous debate about that. Some wiser ones subtly and successfully take the mick out of such shenanigans.

Stuff the naysayers, and keep up the impure work!

Well, one of the reasons that I don't engage with the forums is that, like all forums, they are populated by too many people who are too full of their own self importance/like the sound of their own voices. Those who would prevent us "terrilble people" creating (yes creating) montages/collages need to go away, do some reading/research and think some original thoughts. I suggest that this might be a good palce to start.

What, I ask, about the great photographers of the past who created montages of their photgraphs, and without the aid of tools like Photoshop? Would we call people like Ansel Adams, Man Ray or Cartier Bresson terrible people because they created collages of their work? I think not!

Following on from this, if my collages/montages are so wrong then let's take the next logical step and ban panoramas, for what is a panorama other than a set of seperate images stitched together to make one image - yes, you got it, a collage, nothing more nor less than a montage of two or more separate images. So let's ban the panorama.

Whether we like it or not photography is an art form, and a creative one at that, and, as an artist with a camera, I like to push the boundaries of my thinking. I like to find different ways of portraying the world around me, and if that means that I sometimes feel the need to stitch several images together so be it. If people don't like what I do that is their problem, I am not holding a gun at their head and forcing them to like my images, and let me say right now if any idiot deigns to criticise me then they are in for a rough ride because they will get both barrels. Rant over...

Better biggified.

Update 25-11-2013:-

Have just had time to check the rules, and guess what - "Composites and digitally altered images are OK, providing every element was photographed on the day" - Rule 1 he say YES!