John Stezaker
John Stezaker’s work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as a documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. In his collages, Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as ‘readymades’. Through his elegant juxtapositions, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of the original images to convey his own witty and poignant meanings.
Using publicity shots of classic film stars, Stezaker splices and overlaps famous faces, creating hybrid ‘icons’ that dissociate the familiar to create sensations of the uncanny. Coupling male and female identity into unified characters, Stezaker points to a disjointed harmony, where the irreconciliation of difference both complements and detracts.
Hannah Hoch
Hannah Höch was a German Dada artist who lived from November 1st, 1889 – May 31st 1978 . She is best known for her work of the Weimar period, when she was one of the originators of photomontage. Photomontage is a type of collage in which the pasted items are actual photographs pulled from other sources of media or photography.
Höch’s work often focused on gender roles where she wanted to show that woman were just as capable and equal as men. Her active interest in challenging the status of women in the social world of her times motivated a long series of works that promoted the idea of the “New Woman” in the era.
Using the same techniques of photomontage, I wanted to create works where I would merge masculine traits with feminine traits. I was inspired to combine my own images with photos of masculine and feminine stereotypes in media.
The images needed slightly enhancing in order to balance the light, contrast, saturation and shadows of the 2 photographs, and cropping in order to make sure that the background of the images look clean and fully white so that the subjects stand out nicely.
In response to this I wanted to have a go at trying to create images based around this theme, using images taken by me which I could manipulate into these designs. These were my outcomes:
I explored a variety of techniques such as liquify, layering and separation. This allowed me to have the effects desired as I was able to manipulate the facial features of the subject, which can be related to the theme of missing or lost identity within yourself.
Favorite Outcomes 
As seen in her work, she wanted to focus on how the photos were meant to recreate paintings in an innovative and creative way not seen before.
The 7 deadly sins were a popular topic when doing tableau photography due to each one having an important connection. These were Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. I could then link this back to how these all formed their own unique identity and change the individual for the good or worse.