Photo-Montage – John Stezaker

Stezaker is a British photographer born in 1949.

He is fascinated by the “lure”of images.

Stezakers’ works focus on photo montage to give old images a new meaning and add a creative surrealistic tinge to his photography.

He focuses on the similarities of structural and compositional elements of an image and stitches them together in a seamless yet surreal fashion. For example in the below image he uses the structure of the cliff faces and relates them to the structure of the subjects faces in the background.

This image has quite a flat, monochromatic style which almost gives it a warm balance, soft texture and comfortable feel. The montaging of the cliff faces is visually appealing as it is framed in the centre of the image. The two layers to the image each have their own depth which creates this double up of depth in the image and the eye has a lot of elements to look at which would give it a chaotic composition however because of the montaging the additional layer fits seamlessly within the background which cancels out this chaos and rather satisfies the composition.

My response to Stezakers’ work:

John Stezaker. Marriage XV. 2006 | MoMA
John Stezaker
Michael Kenealy
John Stezaker - Whitechapel Gallery
John Stezaker
Michael Kenealy

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