Editing Photomontage

{{Short description|Composite image created from two or more photographs}}
[[File:Kitrone.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Photomontage of kiwifruit and lemons, digitally manipulated using [[GIMP]]]]

'''Photomontage''' is the process and the result of making a [[compositing|composite]] photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://paedia.com/Docs/VIDEO_PHOTOMONTAGE.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://paedia.com/Docs/VIDEO_PHOTOMONTAGE.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Apparatus and Method for Application of Selective Digital Photomontage to Motion Pictures |last1=Clark |first1=Lloyd Douglas |last2=Brown |first2=Brian A.}}</ref> Sometimes the resulting [[Compositing#Physical compositing|composite image]] is photographed so that the final image may appear as a seamless physical print. A similar method, although one that does not use film, is realized today through [[graphics software|image-editing software]]. This latter technique is referred to by professionals as "[[digital compositing|compositing]]", and in casual usage is often called "[[photo manipulation|photoshopping]]" (from the name of the popular software system).<ref>{{cite book |title=Undead Theories: Constructivism, Eclecticism And Research in Education |first=David |last=Geelan |publisher=Sense Publishers |year=2006 |isbn=90-77874-31-3}}</ref> A composite of related photographs to extend a view of a single scene or subject would not be labeled as a montage, but instead a [[stitched image]] or a [[digital image mosaic]].

==History==
Author [[Oliver Grau]] in his book, ''Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion'', notes that the creation of an artificial [[immersive virtual reality]], arising as a result of technical exploitation of new inventions, is a long-standing human practice throughout the ages. Such environments as [[diorama]]s were made of composited images.

=== 19th century ===
[[File:Oscar-gustave-rejlander two ways of life (HR, sepia).jpg|thumb|right|360px|''The Two Ways of Life'', a moralistic photo montage of Rejlanders own work, 1857-a choice between vice (at left) and virtue (at right)]]
[[Image:Henry Peach Robinson, Fading Away, 1858.jpg|right|thumb|360px|Robinson's ''Fading Away'' (1858)]]

The first and most famous mid-Victorian photomontage (then called [[combination printing]]) was "The Two Ways of Life" (1857) by [[Oscar Rejlander]],<ref name="Davenport1991">{{cite book|last=Davenport|first=Alma|title=The History of Photography: An Overview|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hca5H_rJZnUC&pg=PA164|access-date=5 January 2013|year=1991|publisher=[[University of New Mexico Press]]|isbn=978-0-8263-2076-6|page=164}}</ref> followed shortly thereafter by the images of photographer [[Henry Peach Robinson]] such as "Fading Away" (1858). These works actively set out to challenge the then-dominant [[painting]] and theatrical [[tableau vivant]]s.
[[File:Carnival, South End Exhibition Rink, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, February 1899.jpg|thumb|360px|Carnival, South End Exhibition Rink, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, February 1899; The carefully prepared photomontage composite was a Notman specialty, each figure being photographed separately and then combined as a single image]]
In late Victorian North America, [[William Notman]] of Montreal used photomontage to commemorate large social events which could not otherwise be captured on film. Fantasy photomontage [[postcard]]s were also popular in the late [[Victorian era]] and [[Edwardian era]].<ref name="Valcke2011">{{cite book|last=Valcke|first=Jennifer|title=Static Films and Moving Pictures: Montage in Avant-Garde Photography and Film|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aE42DQHnLRwC&pg=PA11|access-date=5 January 2013|date=October 2011|publisher=GRIN Verlag|isbn=978-3-656-03720-0|page=11}}</ref> One of the preeminent producers in this period was the [[Bamforth & Co Ltd]], of [[Holmfirth]], West Yorkshire, and New York. The high point of its popularity came, however, during World War I, when photographers in France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Hungary produced a profusion of postcards showing soldiers on one plane and lovers, wives, children, families, or parents on another.<ref>Marie-Monique Huss, Histoires de famille: cartes postales et culture de guerre (Paris: Noesis, 2000).</ref> Many of the early examples of fine-art photomontage consist of photographed elements superimposed on [[Watercolor painting|watercolour]]s, a combination returned to by (e.g.) [[George Grosz]] in about 1915.

=== 20th century ===

==== Heartfield, Grosz, and Dada ====
In 1916, [[John Heartfield]] and [[George Grosz]] experimented with pasting pictures together, a form of art later named "Photomontage.”

George Grosz wrote, "When John Heartfield and I invented photomontage in my South End studio at five o’clock on a May morning in 1916, neither of us had any inkling of its great possibilities, nor of the thorny yet successful road it was to take. As so often happens in life, we had stumbled across a vein of gold without knowing it."<ref name="King2015">{{cite book|last=King|first=David|title=Laughter is a Devastating Weapon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_swZrgEACAAJ|date=October 2015|publisher=[[Harry N. Abrams]]|isbn=978-1849761840|page=13|access-date=2020-08-02|archive-date=2023-07-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230719180956/https://books.google.com/books?id=_swZrgEACAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/helmut-herzfeld-john-heartfield/heartfield-in-quotes/george-grosz-quotes | title=George Grosz Quote On Photomontage Invention | work=Official John Heartfield Exhibition | access-date=9 January 2017 | archive-date=9 May 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509041721/https://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/helmut-herzfeld-john-heartfield/heartfield-in-quotes/george-grosz-quotes | url-status=dead }}</ref>

John Heartfield and George Grosz were members of Berlin Club Dada  (1916–1920).<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/german-dada-berlin-dada-art | title=Berlin Club Dada 1916-1920 | work=Official John Heartfield Exhibition | access-date=9 January 2017 | archive-date=10 January 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170110020143/http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/german-dada-berlin-dada-art | url-status=live }}</ref> The German Dadists were instrumental in making montage into a modern art-form. The term "photomontage” became widely known at the end of World War I, around 1918 or 1919.[5]

Heartfield used photomontage extensively in his innovative book dust jackets for the Berlin publishing house Malik-Verlag.<ref name="Zervigon2012">{{cite book|last=Zervigón|first=Andrés|title=John Heartfield and the Agitated Image: Photography, Persuasion, and the Rise of Avant-Garde Photomontage|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6O9dEuv87ysC|date=November 2012|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|isbn=978-0226981789|access-date=2020-08-02|archive-date=2023-07-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230719180957/https://books.google.com/books?id=6O9dEuv87ysC|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/political-dada-art | title=Malik-Verlag Photomontage Book Dust Jackets | work=Official John Heartfield Exhibition | access-date=9 January 2017 | archive-date=10 January 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170110020303/http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/political-dada-art | url-status=live }}</ref> He revolutionized the look of these book covers. Heartfield was the first to use photomontage to tell a “story” from the front cover of the book to the back cover. He also employed groundbreaking typography to enhance the effect.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/heartfield-book-art-1924 | title=John Heartfield Photomontage Book Dust Jackets | work=Official John Heartfield Exhibition | access-date=9 January 2017 | archive-date=10 January 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170110015119/http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/heartfield-book-art-1924 | url-status=live }}</ref>

From 1930 to 1938, John Heartfield used photomontage to create 240 “Photomontages of The Nazi Period”<ref name="Heartfield1997">{{cite book|last=Heartfield|first=John|title=Photomontages of the Nazi Period|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R3JOAAAAYAAJ|date=May 1997|publisher=Universe Books|isbn=0876639546|access-date=2020-08-02|archive-date=2023-07-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230719180954/https://books.google.com/books?id=R3JOAAAAYAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/political-art-posters/heartfield-posters-aiz | title=John Heartfield Photomontages Of The Nazi Period | work=Official John Heartfield Exhibition | access-date=9 January 2017 | archive-date=12 March 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312080141/http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/political-art-posters/heartfield-posters-aiz | url-status=dead }}</ref> to use art as a weapon against fascism and The Third Reich. The photomontages appeared on street covers all over Berlin on the cover of the widely circulated AIZ magazine published by [[Willi Münzenberg]], Heartfield lived in Berlin until April, 1933, when he escaped to Czechoslovakia after he was targeted for assassination by the SS. Continuing to produce anti-fascist art in Czechoslovakia until 1938, Heartfield's political photomontages earned him the number five position on the Gestapo's Most Wanted List.

[[Hannah Höch]] began experimenting with photomontage in 1918. Höch worked for Ullstein Verlag designing knitting and embroidery patterns that were inspired by her photomontage work of the time.<ref>Maria Makela (1996). "By Design: The Early Work of Hannah Höch in Context". In Boswell, Peter; Makela, Maria; Lanchner, Carolyn (eds.). ''The photomontages of Hannah Höch'' (1. ed.). Minneapolis: Walker Art Center. p. 62. {{ISBN|9780935640526}}.</ref> She continued to work with photomontage for almost the rest of her life, even after she broke from the Berlin Dadaists.

Other major artists who were members of Berlin Club Dada and major exponents of photomontage were [[Kurt Schwitters]], [[Raoul Hausmann]], and [[Johannes Baader]]. Individual photographs combined to create a new subject or visual image proved to be a powerful tool for the Dadists protesting [[World War I]] and the interests that they believed inspired the war. Photomontage survived Dada and was a technique inherited and used by European [[Surrealist]]s such as [[Salvador Dalí]]. Its influence also spread to Japan where avant-garde painter [[Harue Koga]] produced photomontage-style paintings based on images culled from magazines.<ref name="eskolahk">{{cite book|last=Eskola|first=Jack|title=Harue Koga: David Bowie of the Early 20th Century Japanese Art Avant-garde|year=2015|publisher=Kindle, e-book}}</ref> The world's first retrospective show of photomontage was held in Germany in 1931.<ref name="Becker2011">{{cite book|last=Becker|first=Lutz|title=Cut & Paste. European Photomontage 1920–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v9yR186XI9AC&pg=PA13|access-date=5 January 2013|date=2011-11-11|publisher=Gangemi Editore spa|isbn=978-88-492-6515-6|page=13}}</ref> A later term coined in Europe was, "photocollage", which usually referred to large and ambitious works that added [[typography]], brushwork, or even objects stuck to the photomontage.

==== Russian/Soviet Constructivism ====
Parallel to the Germans, Russian [[Constructivism (art)|Constructivist]] artists such as [[El Lissitzky]], [[Alexander Rodchenko]], and the husband-and-wife team of [[Gustav Klutsis]] and [[Valentina Kulagina]] created pioneering photomontage work as [[propaganda]], such as in the journal [[USSR in Construction]], for the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] government.

==== In the Americas ====
Following his exile to Mexico in the late 1930s, Spanish Civil War activist and montage artist, [[Josep Renau Berenguer]], compiled his acclaimed, ''Fata Morgana USA: the American Way of Life'', a book of photomontage images highly critical of [[American culture]] and North American "consumer culture".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.art-for-a-change.com/NoPasaran/spain2.htm|title=ART FOR A CHANGE - Posters of the Spanish Civil War|access-date=2007-08-26|archive-date=2007-08-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070804044235/http://www.art-for-a-change.com/NoPasaran/spain2.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> His contemporary, [[Lola Alvarez Bravo]], experimented with photomontage on life and social issues in Mexican cities.

In Argentina during the late 1940s, the [[Germany|German]] exile, [[Grete Stern]], began to contribute photomontage work on the theme of ''Sueños'' (Dreams), as part of a regular psychoanalytical article in the magazine, ''Idilio''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/stern/engle.html|title=Untitled Document|publisher=zonezero.com|access-date=2007-08-26|archive-date=2007-08-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070822195412/http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/stern/engle.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Postwar photomontage ====
The pioneering techniques of early photomontage artists were co-opted by the advertising industry from the late 1920s onward. The American photographer [[Alfred Gescheidt]], while working primarily in advertising and commercial art in the 1960s and 1970s, used photomontage techniques to create satirical posters and postcards.<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = University of Missouri Press| isbn = 9780826209542| last = Chapnick| first = Howard| title = Truth Needs No Ally: Inside Photojournalism| location = Columbia, Missouri| date = 1994| url-access = registration| url = https://archive.org/details/truthneedsnoally00chap}}</ref>{{rp|139}}

[[File:Articulos electricos para el hogar - Grete Stern, 1950.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|A 1950 photomontage by [[Grete Stern]]]]

Starting in the 1960s, [[Jerry Uelsmann]] became influential in the photomontage world, using multiple [[enlarger]]s to utilize many techniques that would someday influence digital photomontage, down to the naming of tools in Photoshop. In 1985 he even published a book demonstrating and explaining his techniques, two years before [[Thomas Knoll|Thomas]] and [[John Knoll]] began selling Photoshop through Adobe.

Ten years later in 1995, Adobe's creative director [[Russel Brown]] tried to get Uelsmann to test out Photoshop. Uelsmann didn't like it, but his wife [[Maggie Taylor]] did, and began using it to produce digital photomontage, becoming a founder of the modern genre.

==Techniques==
Other methods for combining images are also called photomontage, such as Victorian "combination printing", the printing of more than one negative on a single piece of printing paper (e.g. [[Oscar Gustave Rejlander|O. G. Rejlander]], 1857), front-projection and computer montage techniques. Much as a [[collage]] is composed of multiple facets, artists also combine montage techniques. A series of black and white "photomontage projections" by [[Romare Bearden]] (1912–1988) is an example. His method began with compositions of paper, paint, and photographs put on boards measuring 8½ × 11&nbsp;inches. Bearden fixed the imagery with an emulsion that he then applied with hand roller. Subsequently, he photographed and enlarged them. The nineteenth century tradition of physically joining multiple images into a composite and photographing the results prevailed in press photography and [[offset lithography]] until the widespread use of [[digital image editing]].

20th century [[Xerox]] technology made possible the ability to copy both flat images and three-dimensional objects using the copier as a scanning camera. Such copier images could then be combined with real objects in a traditional cut-and-glue [[collage]] manner.

Contemporary photograph editors in magazines now create "paste-ups" digitally. Creating a photomontage has, for the most part, become easier with the advent of computer software such as [[Adobe Photoshop]], [[Paint Shop Pro]], [[Corel Photopaint]], [[Pixelmator]], [[Paint.NET]], or [[GIMP]]. These programs make the changes digitally, allowing for faster workflow and more precise results. They also mitigate mistakes by allowing the artist to "undo" errors. Yet some artists are pushing the boundaries of digital image editing to create extremely time-intensive compositions that rival the demands of the traditional arts. The current trend is to create images that combine painting,<ref>''[[Yuri Rydkin]]'' {{cite web|url=https://syg.ma/@rydkin/v-ramkakh-fotokollazhi|title=WITHIN (photo collages)|work=Sygma|access-date=8 January 2021|archive-date=7 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307083427/https://syg.ma/@rydkin/v-ramkakh-fotokollazhi|url-status=live}} // Foreword: art critic [[:ru:Даими, Теймур|''Теймур Даими'']], photo artist [[:ru:Василий Ломакин (поэт)|''Василий Ломакин'']], literary critic [[:ru:Зейферт, Елена Ивановна|''Елена Зейферт'']].</ref> theatre, illustration, and graphics in a seamless photographic whole.

==Legal and ethical issues==
[[File:BMW M8 GTE endurance race car in front of Tyrolian mountains - photomontage.jpg|thumb|Example for an artificially created, totally misleading image: A race car exhibited at an airport (below) was cropped and combined on a computer with snowy mountains, leading to an image of a situation which never existed.]] 
[[File:M8 Flughafen München (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[BMW M8 GTE]] endurance race car at [[Munich airport]] in 2021]]
{{Further|Derivative work}}
A photomontage may contain elements at once real and imaginary. Combined photographs and digital manipulations may set up a conflict between [[aesthetics]] and [[ethics]] – for instance, in fake photographs that are presented to the world as real news. For example, in the [[United States]], the [[National Press Photographers Association]] (NPPA) has set out a Code of Ethics promoting the accuracy of published images, advising that photographers "do not manipulate images&nbsp;... that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects."<ref>[http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/ethics nppa.org] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061212074440/http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/ethics |date=2006-12-12 }}, NPPA Code of Ethics webpage</ref>

==Scrapbooking ==
Photomontage also may be present in the [[scrapbooking]] phenomenon, in which family images are pasted into scrapbooks and a collage created along with paper ephemera and decorative items.

[[Digital art]] scrapbooking employs a computer to create simple collage designs and captions. The amateur scrapbooker can turn home projects into professional output, such as CDs, DVDs, displays on television, uploads to a website for viewing, or assemblies into one or more books for sharing.

==Photograph manipulation==

[[Photograph manipulation]] refers to alterations made to an image. Often, the goal of photograph manipulation is to create another 'realistic' image. This has led to numerous political and ethical concerns, particularly in journalism.
<!-- {{Wideimage|Photomontage (Forggensee Panorama).jpg|[[Compositing|Composite]] of 16 photographs that have been digitally manipulated to give the impression that it is a real [[landscape]]. ''Software used:  [[Adobe Photoshop]]''}} -->

==Gallery==

===Examples by modern artists===

<gallery class="center" widths="250px" heights="250px">
File:Hoch-Cut With the Kitchen Knife.jpg|[[Hannah Höch]], ''Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany'', 1919
File:Osnovnoye Design for a stand at the entrance to an exhibition of works by the students of the Basic Course of VKhUTEMAS Design project for the emblem of the Basic Course of VKhUTEMAS - Gustavs Klucis.jpg|[[Gustav Klutsis]], design for a stand at the entrance to an exhibition, 1920
File:El Lissitzky The Constructor, self-portrait, gelatin silver print, 107×118 mm, 1924 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. PH142-1985.jpg|[[El Lissitzky]], ''The Constructor'', 1924 
</gallery>

===Other===
<gallery class="center" widths="250px" heights="250px">
File:Example of photomontage based on Delimara Power Station 2009.jpg|[[Compositing|Composite]] of 11 different images
File:08913-Perspective Run.jpg|Perspective run
File:Iceberg.jpg|Photomontage showing what a complete [[iceberg]] might look like under water
File:Fotocollage crop.jpg|Fotocollage
File:Coin - Achraf Baznani.jpg|A modern photomontage
File:Showing five instead of four in addition to the thumb with one extra finger added in the hand.jpg|Showing [[5|five]] [[Digit (anatomy)|digits]] instead of four
</gallery> Gallery of jane.jeruto Eldoretian like many of Eding

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[Compositing]]
* [[Composograph]]
* [[Collage]]
* [[Decollage]]
* [[Derivative work]]
* [[Facial Composite]]
* [[Famous photographical manipulations]]
* [[Multiple exposure]]
* [[Photo mosaic]]
* [[Surrealist techniques]]
* [[Crimes de la commune]]
{{div col end}}

== References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links==
{{Commons category|Photomontages}}
*[http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition "Official John Heartfield Exhibition &amp; Archive"], Dada and Political Photomontage, January 9, 2017.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928024803/http://www.ealingtimes.co.uk/display.var.667871.0.0.php "Life through a lens: A different perspective,"] Ealing Times; January 3, 2006.
* [http://www.oaaa.org/news/release.asp?RELEASE_ID=1450 Greek Olympics]; Outdoor Advertising Association of America
* [http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2002/020612b.html "HP Celebrates America's Inventiveness by Creating World's Largest Digital Image,"] HP website. See also Business Wire; June 12, 2002.
* [http://chronicle.com/free/2002/01/2002011701t.htm "A Portrait of Goldwater Is a Computer-Aided Mosaic of His Own,"] The Chronicle of Higher Education; February 1, 2002.
*{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/11/nyregion/musings-on-collage-the-photomontages-of-romare-bearden.html |title=Musings on Collage: The Photomontages of Romare Bearden |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=May 11, 1997 }}
*[http://www.collageart.org/photomontage/ Photomontage Artists]
*[http://www.d-log.info/timeline/index.html A timeline of fantastic photomontage and its possible influences, 1857–2007]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20081022123927/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davepalmer/cutandpaste/intro.html Cut & Paste: a history of photomontage]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060220084300/http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/keys/virtualexhibits/notmanstudio/themes/composites/ Composite Photographs] Historical essay on William Notman, with video clips.
*[[Interactive Digital Photomontage]] – a technical paper on a semi-automated approach to photomontage, published at [[SIGGRAPH]] 2004.

{{Decorative arts|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Audiovisual introductions in 1857]]
[[Category:Photographic techniques]]
[[Category:Collage| Photomontage]]