In this series my main focus was to create a set of collages in the darkroom, sampling negatives of my own that best reflect my deep appreciation for music and album artwork. I wanted to create stylistic black and white photographs ranging from playful to surreal. I was mainly inspired by three things: music, nature, and collages.

First, I went into the darkroom and started making my test prints to narrow down the correct exposures, and then I made a few prints. The next day, I cut out the portions of the prints that I wanted to combine with the other images. I needed material thick enough so the light from the enlarger wouldn’t seep through during processing, so I rummaged around in the recycling box and found some old cereal boxes. I traced the outline of the image that I had cut out onto the cardboard to make a stencil. Day three involved setting up multiple enlargers, and I used the stencil to combine two or more parts of an image into a black and white collage.

I used a combination of colour, and black and white negatives to create these images, adding a contrast filter as needed to achieve the desired effect. Most of these images have some aspect of the natural and the man-made world. I wanted to demonstrate the juxtaposition in a surreal way combining the two worlds we live in.

My goal was to create unrealized album artwork for the type of music I like to create with my friends, inspired by the music I listen to with artwork that accompanies those albums.