Advanced Photogram

I am calling this project "Smoking Man" because the cutout man is smoking a cigarette. The subject is an abstract portrait based off of a collage I created. I chose to create this specific work because I wanted to tell a message about freedom and how the people in the village live in true freedom, without the problems people face in heavily populated areas. At the same time I wanted to show that this man is not free because of his addiction and how it has control over him in a way. For materials, I used magazines and light sensitive paper. I used techniques including collaging and contact printing. While creating this work, I paid close attention to filling the entire collage while not having it to busy, I did that by having the dark background in between his silhouette and the village. I wanted my work to look mysterious and I did that by cutting out the man's portrait and placing in foggy mountains. To add interest to my composition, I used layering with the different pages. I like the way the village looks in the background and am proud of the mountains in his portrait. However I struggled with getting the contrast to look as good as it does in the collage. If I created another work like this I may try to adjust the aperture of the enlarger to get more contrast. My work shows that I learned to create an advanced photogram.