Extensis Portfolio Image Collage Competition

Results of the March Competition

Well, this is the first month for this collage competition and there were some great entries. Picking a top five was pretty easy (in comparison) and then it got harder with each finalist we eliminated. Separating the last two was extremely hard.

The March Winner of the Extensis Portfolio 8 software is Ursula Freer of Santa Fe, NM, USA, with her entry 'Petals'

You can jump to Ursula's website here.

Judges comments: 'This is a great image, with excellent color, placement and concept. Excellent execution'.

Runners up were:

Laurie Thompson, New Orleans, LA, USA www.FauxtoGrafix.com

Judges comments: 'Excellent piece with great use of Santeria (and related) symbolism. Well balanced, interesting and thoughtful'

This was created to be in a "Day of the Dead" exhibition in New Orleans. After researching the meaning of the event and the elaborate altars that are built I had a direction.
Each of the items in the image has a meaning for the altar. The bamboo leaves at the top and bottom are from my backyard and were scanned on the flatbed using the transparency adapter. The other images are from my files of misc. objects and backgrounds that has been years in the collecting. I have taken thousands of 35mm slides over the years and rely on that as a source. If I need something I don't have I capture a digital image at that time. My images are all assembled and manipulated in Photoshop and painting effects are added in Painter.

S. Martin Friedman, Pleasantville, NY, USA www.smfgallery.com

Judges comments: 'A great mix of images that work well together. An image open to a lot of interpretations and able to keep you interested for a long time.'

Composition3. This image was created from many disparate elements put together to form a satisfactory composition. Artistic design and the was in which they worked with each other was my guiding rule in selecting the elements.

James G. Respess, San Diego, CA, USA www.greenflashphotography.com

Judges comments: 'Good use of lighting. Strong image, well developed'

This piece. "Lady Belshaw Inspects" was created from three original photographs: 1) canopy bed with model, 2) background room and 3) "ghost" model. The room and bed photos were taken in the Belshaw House in the California Ghost Town of Cerro Gordo. The ghost model photo was taken separately and layered in at approximately 50% opacity. Colors, aura and lighting were adjusted independently for each layer.

John Stevenson, Colorado Springs, CO, USA www.photoscena.com

Judges comments: 'Nice use of a panorama for an unusual (for stiched panoramas) subject matter'

These are simple collages, placing in counterpoint an "aggressive" photographic still life image together with a rendered version of the same subject. I was looking initially to create just the rendering alone - in a way which looked similar to some botanical studies of cultivated flowers which I found in a second-hand store in London, dating to original prints made there in the early 1800s. Then I also came across "Photography is Dead, Long Live Painting" here: http://tinyurl.com/mumeg which was cited in several (mostly silly) interviews/articles contributed to the 'photography as art' debate by David Hockney. Technically, just two separate photographic exposures are used in both collages. Most of the rendering was done using ArtMasterPro (from Fo2PiX) and the final composition completed in Photoshop. The original photography is my own - 35 mm film images, made on Fuji Velvia, using a Tamron SP 90 mm Macro lens, and scanned using a Nikon Coolscan V ED.

Other interesting collage entries are shown on a second page. Click here.