Montage portraits one year on

It was only a year ago that I took my first montage portrait of Irate (of Modu Designs) at Red Mutha’s fashion fair. At the time I was going take Irate’s portrait I wanted to record all the details of his fabulous threads. I very rarely shot photos in a portrait orientation and if I had shot him in landscape I would lost all the details when the photo was blown up. Then I remembered seeing an Austrian Photographer at the Lomo World Congress in 2003 taking a montage with his Lomo LCA and I thought it would be perfect for this situation. For the record I can’t remember the Austrians name but I am pretty sure he was the designer of the Super Sampler.

Left: Irate from June 2009, Middle + Right: Irate one year on

After putting together the 1st one I did not think much of it. In October 2009 I went to Phoot camp in California and shot portraits of the attendees using the montage technique. Once I was back home I slowly uploaded them to Flickr where they got very positive feed back from the Flickr masses. Shooting in this style was something I was going to continue.

Flickr links: Left Jen Giese, Middle Dan Busta, Right Mona Brooks

Then in December 2009 I discussed doing the trend spotting for the 1st issue of Brighton Source Magazine of 2010 using the technique as a one-off with the editor and chief The James Kendel. It turned out the Source liked what I did for them and I enjoyed doing it so much that it’s now turned into a permanent feature. I am now 6 issues in and going strong! I had only shot 3 sets of portraits for Source when Photo Pro Magazine approached me to write something about what I was doing for Source. I am really enjoying it as I am getting to meet so many people I might not of met otherwise.

Flickr links: Left Lee, Middle Ruby, Right Maria

In May my wife Rockcake and Partially Obscured hand an open house together. For the show I wanted to shoot something new so I decided to shoot the people who make Brighton the special place it is using the montage style rather than hanging some pre-shot work. I Shot people ranging from paramedics to cabaret performers to fashion designers. I arranged and shot 14 portraits in the month before the show, all with the added complication of a 4 week old baby at home! The show went down really well and I have already accepted commissions to shot family portraits in the style.

Nick Baird paramedic, Betty Swollocks Cabaret Artiest and the Ophelia Fancy fashions designers

Left Nick Baird (paramedic), Middle Betty Swollocks, Right Ophelia Fancy girls
(These links are to there individual web site as i have not posted them to flickr yet)

It’s One year on from when shot my first montage portrait of Irate and I have a little mental to do list of things to do with my montage portraits. I am going to producing a Blurb book of the best of the 1st years portraits as there are quite a lot to choose from. There are 67 on Flickr and 200+ on my computer. Some have not been put together, some are waiting go into Source and there is all the stuff from my Brighton project which I have simply not got round to posting to Flickr yet! I am also going to start a Tumbler blog just for the montage’s and I am having a custom theme being built watch this space.

What made me write this post was hanging out with Irate at another one of Red Mutha’s fashion fairs 2 weeks back. Seeing as he was the one that started it all I gave him a framed version of the 1st one. I think he was happy with it! (sorry about the crappy iPhone photo)

This entry was posted in News and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

5 Responses to Montage portraits one year on

  1. panelomo says:

    good stuff – very inspiring!

  2. These are wonderful – I’m new to film photography, but was bought your book as a gift last month. I love it!

  3. Adeline says:

    That’s genius!

  4. PedroKid says:

    nice one Kev.
    a really nice insight into the history behind the project and how it’s progressed. keep on rocking it dude, love this new twist on what is clearly a “lomokev” style of shooting.
    awesome dude.

  5. Rhiannon Brackpool says:

    your pictures are amazing, i have been studying the artist Hockney and now im doing extra work looking at your pictures, they are brilliant.

Leave a Reply to AdelineCancel reply