COLLAGES

ANALOG

This collage utilizes a new technique I learned during the first week of our b&w photography class. Before we began taking and developing photos, we were tasked with bringing in objects we thought might produce cool silhouettes captured with light in the dark room. I had an array of photograms to choose from, but I chose to create more with only a few new objects. I initially wanted to take all the photograms I had made throughout the semester as well as a few from my classmates and create one large collage, but as I began laying out and cutting/ripping all the photos, there was a clear vision of what the collage would be. I created new photograms with the cassettes I had grabbed from a friend's house and was going to use the images to collage. However, the collage and meaning behind it became clear. This is my last year of college, and within this past year, there has been a lot of self-growth and re-actualization. I have been able to reclaim music and art as more than just a hobby but a way of self-expression. This piece emphasizes the nature of staying true to your roots and ways of beginning. As the cassette is one of the first ways to capture analog audio, it reminds me to stay true to the first ways of living and the first things I loved, as they will evolve but will always remain. Just as audio has evolved past cassettes, vinyls, and even CDs to the new age of digital audio, the love and innovation remains constant.

ODE TO B&W PHOTOGRAPHY

This piece is essentially what the title states. It is an ode to my time in Monmouth University's class Black and White Photography 1, taught by Professor Ludak. Within my collage, many pieces are cut, ripped apart, and drawn on. I saved each handout we were given throughout the semester and taped them on the base. From there, I collaged pieces of film negatives taken from the practice strips as well as deconstructed 35mm used film boxes, a flattened film canister, end tips, and rolls. There are also pieces of some of my test strips from working to enlarge my self-portrait series photos in the dark room. I think this collage is the next installment after my self-portrait series, but also a conclusion to everything I’ve learned and done in this class. Film photography is something I’ve always been interested in and wanted to learn about/do in terms of not only taking photos and learning how to use my camera through metering, exposing each shot correctly, dealing with aperture and shutter speed, etc. but also how to develop the negatives, scan them and enlarge and develop full photos in a dark room. So, it only seems fitting that my final piece of work is an ode to this class because it is here that I was able to not only learn all of these things and excel at them but then be able to use this class as an outlet to 1) reclaim but also 2) express my love for photography and creativity.