A photographic montage combines multiple images juxtaposed in size and placement to emphasize a message. When used in advertising photography and marketing pieces, the contrasting elements of photo montage creates a striking visual effect that arrests the eye and become an effective tool for communicating a company’s message.
Ted DeCagna recently used this creative approach when the assignment called for an attention getting visual. Ted’s client, CJS Violations Services, a trucking violations and educational compliance service company, had requested a striking banner for an upcoming trade show. The banner needed to communicate compliance services for New York City area trucking companies. Ted’s imaginative solution was to take a unique nighttime skyline time exposure photo of the New York City skyline from the Hudson River (which Ted achieved shooting from a dinner cruise ship). He later photographed a new white tractor trailer, also intentionally shot at night for a more dramatic look and to fit perfectly with the nighttime skyline of New York, and then photo composed the two images into one. The final result shows the tractor trailer parked on the Hudson River against the illuminated skyline of Manhattan. This photo special effect created a one-of-a-kind visual that makes most viewers do a double take and demands their attention. The headline “CJS Violations Services, We Drive Compliance for Your Company” clearly communicates to New York area trucking companies that CJS is an expert company to help truckers with compliance and educational seminars. Ted won a photography award of excellence from American Graphic Design and Advertising 30, a national design annual of graphic design, advertising and photography for this striking photo montage.
Another of Ted’s recent examples of strong advertising photography utilizing a photo montage was for Shofar hot dogs. Ted created an ad also using a fabulous skyline of New York, this time, shot from high atop the cliffs at Weehawken, NJ. To complete the photo, Ted shot 15 Shofar hot dogs in his studio to capture one perfect shot of their signature product. In this ad seen all over New York City on hot dog carts, Ted composed the image of the hot dog in the size and placement of a giant cruise ship steaming up the Hudson River. Once again, the play of size and proportion “created a visual you were not expecting”, making this advertising photography an instant eye-catching poster that was a very successful, memorable way to get the client’s name in front of the consumer. The headline “New York’s Best!” completed the message that Shofar is one of New York’s best Kosher hot dogs.
A third example of strong photo montage was advertising photography for Little Jimmy’s Italian Ice. With this trade magazine ad the client was looking for a whimsical ad to get the customers attention and show off their famous delicious Italian ice. Ted’s solution was to take a good photo of his client behind their Italian ice cart but Ted enlarged the head 3 times larger than normal and enlarged the client’s hand 20 times bigger to hold a huge delicious cherry Italian ice which also gave Ted the perfect spot to list all the product benefits. Shooting Italian ice is quite a challenge as any product photography requires a ton of light and lights get hot which can melt Italian ice in seconds! The solution was to not use conventional spot lights but to only use 3 strobe lights that fire in a fraction of a second without the heat generated from conventional spot lights. Many takes were needed to take the Italian ice from the freezer and shoot in the studio very quickly before the ice could melt.
Once again photo montage here was a smash hit as it certainly grabbed everyone’s attention and makes the customer smile or laugh with such a dramatic size juxtaposition. The final magazine ad was a major success for the client and ran for many years proving striking photo montage is powerful advertising photography that works!
To view all three images large On Print Advertising 2 link…
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