Paramontage

At the end of April 2022 I started assembling photos and combined some with poems. I planned to get my framer to make them up into composed sets but eventually abandoned the idea in favour of making assemblages of images and poems using graphical manipulation software. Initially setting these in a grid I moved to using more discernment by changing the sizes of images and cropping them to fit a pre-determined field. 

I call these assemblages "paramontage" after an old school friend named Andrew Adair suggested the word. They're basically collages but because they use both words and images without favouring one or the other method of expression I wanted a different word to use to label them. I have made different types:

1. A4 with overlays on single image and 6-line poem
2. Multiple different-sized images and sonnet
3. Multiple different-sized images and free-form long poem
4. Multiple different-sized images and 6-line poem
5. Grid with longfree-form poem
6. Grid with sonnet
7. Long format with prose poem 
8. A4 with long free-form poem 
9. 6-line poem square with overlays
10. 5-image layout with sonnet
11. Sonnet square with overlays
12. Multi-panel dual row with sonnet
13. A4 vertical single image and rhyming couplet
14. Book review

As at the end of June '22 I was mainly making Type-1 and Type-2 paramontages. At this time I still hadn't had any of the items framed. By August of the same year I was making Type-10 paramontages mainly as well as some Type-1s with some framed and more being made. The first public showing of paramontages was in August '23 at Laerk Space.

In order to more easily transport the paramontages I bought stationery to carry the larger ones. I also set up a folder for the Type-1s with plastic sleeves bought at a retail outlet. The folder used to be used for my job applications until I shredded the lot of them one year when I was tidying things up.

I use three different digital cameras, all Canons: an A530, an SX130 and an SX620. They were bought at different times and have different resolutions.

'California dreaming I', 2024, a Type-7 paramontage.

'Gargantua', 2022, a Type-10 paramontage

'It doesn't matter to me who it is', 2022; a Type-2 paramontage

'Freshet', 2023, a Type-1 paramontage

'Memory', 2022, a Type-3 paramontage

'Incipiens', 2024, a Type-12 paramontage

'Burn your bridges', 2024, a Type-13 paramontage

'China, A History in Objects;, 2024, Type-14 paramontage

Friends' work in the form of "paramontage"

This is a humorous section aimed at demonstrating how big the step into paramontage was for me when I started. Everyone around me understood that this was an important part of my personal journey, something that represented by the latent pressure of disappointment, a new beginning in life.

Thank you to Basia Sokolowska, a photographer who I've known since the 80s, for this lovely card (see below). It's not strictly a paramontage because no text, but the thought is kind.