Joiner Photography
Joiner photography is a photographic technique wherein multiple pictures are assembled into one.
There are two types of joiner photography, photographic collages and Polaroid collages. David Hockney is a photographer most commonly associated with these two types of joiner photography, as shown in the three images above. Photographic collages are made up of multiple photographs layered on top of each other. Polaroid photographs are made up of multiple images joined together to make up a whole picture. The Polaroid photos often feature white space around them to resemble Polaroids which is where they gained their namesake.
To experiment with this technique I began by mimicking Hockney’s work. I planned to take multiple images of my model in different locations to produce a single image of them standing. I took multiple images of them standing in different areas with interesting textures in the foreground, so that I could layer each image on top of another to produce the illusion of being a single picture. I attempted to photograph my model at similar distances so that when I edited the photographs there was not a large amount of visible difference between distances. I believe that my photographs could have been improved by making sure that I was photographed from the same distance each time, using a method such as a tape measure. I would also make sure that I was the central part of the photograph. However the photographs that I chose to use were sufficient for my experiment.
To begin editing my images I opened the three that looked to have the most similar distances between them and loaded them into Photoshop. Before I moved the three images onto a single worksheet, I adjusted the brightness/contrast settings, along with the black and white levels. This made the images appear to have more consistent lighting. I then unlocked them, and copy and pasted them onto a single worksheet (in three separate layers). When moving the images onto a single worksheet I lined them up by using the opacity tool to lower each image’s opacity, and line the up to the image below them.
After layering my images, I cut chunks out of the image, using the bricks of my first image as a guideline.
After this was done I merged all of my images onto a single layer and and exported it into a jpeg file so that it would be able to be uploaded to WordPress.
The above is my final image. I believe that I achieved the basic requirements of a joiner photograph, but it would be more effective if the transitions between the materials were smoother and each image was cropped at a consistent size, this would have prevented my model’s limbs from looking out of proportion.
For my work based on the ‘polaroid collage’ technique inspired by David Hockney I first assembled two seperate layers: a blank layer above the image of my model. I chose to adjust the brightness/contrast on image of my model so that the photograph looked more professional. After this I used the square maraque tool to select a piece of my image and used the shortcut ‘ALT+DEL’ to fill my selection in.
I used the Photoshop’s ‘transform selection’ to mimic the shape of a Polaroid frame around my selected part of the image. I then filled this in white using the ‘CTRL+DEL’ shortcut once more.
After this, I applied a drop shadow effect from the layer ‘fx’ menu. This made my white box resemble a real life Polaroid. I then selected both of my layers, and used the free transform tool to move the ‘frame’ and tilt it. I then used the magic wand tool to cut out the black part of my image, and used the shortcut ‘CTRL+J’ to cut out my background layer.
I repeated this by duplicating the layer that my Polaroid was on. To improve I believe that I could have included more Polaroid images to assemble the whole image. I could have also adjusted the brightness and contrast levels on all of the individual photos within thr polaroid frame.
My final result was exported as a jpeg file so that I could upload it to WordPress.
GCSE photography 