The term photomontage is a juxtaposed word that is made up of two others that have different etymological origin:
-Photo derives from photography, which emanates from the Greek as it is the result of the sum of two lexical components of that language: the noun “photo”, which means “light”, and the term “spelling”, which can be translated as “quality of writing. "
- Assembly, on the other hand, we can establish that it derives from the French verb "monter", which is synonymous with "arm", and the suffix "-aje", which is used to indicate "set".
The concept of photomontage It is formed from two terms: Photo (Photography ) and mounting . The notion refers to a composition which is developed using different images.
A photomontage can be done for various purposes. In many cases, the technique is applied to get an image that could not be achieved naturally . Through a photo montage it is possible to show a human being flying or a fire that occurs underwater, for example.
These compositions may have an artistic, humorous, advertising or other sense. Usually, the author of the photo montage assumes that the viewer knows that his work it is a photomontage (since human beings do not fly and that fire does not ignite in water, if we return to our previous examples). However, you can also explain or clarify it.
However, sometimes it is intended fool the viewers , trying to pass the photo montage as a real (natural) photograph. This is a practice that usually appears in the journalism , when the media act unethically and seek to generate impact through photomontages, without clarifying that these photos register an intervention or an alteration.
A magazine, in this framework, can make a photo montage to simulate that a soccer player hug a model . Thus he publishes on his cover the "tests" Of the supposed romance.
When carrying out a photomontage, it is necessary to follow a series of tips that will allow to achieve the best possible:
-The first and something fundamental is to remove the background to the photographs in question that are going to be used in order to create a suitable one.
-To make that photomontage look as natural as possible it is essential to make good use of two elements such as brightness and contrast.
-You have to pay close attention to the perspective so that all the elements and people that appear in the photomontage have the same.
-As far as possible, we must end the noise of the photographs used because it is the way to achieve a quality photo montage.
-Not to say, you also have to take great care of the proportions and you have to avoid that those are not adequate to reality or to those that really exist between the objects and people that appear.
It is important to note that the realization of photomontages was simplified with the development of computer science. Today there are numerous programs (software ) that allow you to modify photos digitally in a few steps.
