Counted by cool points alone, cubism may win at art—an unmistakable style that explores a subject from multiple angles within a single frame. And for this week's Shooting Challenge, you'll bring cubism to photography.
The Challenge
Take multiple photographs of a single subject or scene, then chop them up and glue them together as one single image. Make something like our lead image, Georges Braque's famous Woman with a Guitar (1913), a quintessential example of Synthetic Cubism.
The Method
Before you plan your piece, it's not a bad idea to read a bit more about cubism. As mind-bending as the works come out, their premise is simple. As explained by Wikipedia:
In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form-instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.
I don't know of a great cubist photographer to share with you (maybe some of our readers do). However, the style seems to lend itself perfectly to photography and I can't wait to see what you come up with.
Consider, not just changing your angle, but your zoom, exposure...maybe even your lens. Do anything, really, except handing in mere panoramic photo montage, an attempt of a 1:1 representation of an image with multiple combined photos. That's not what this challenge is about.
The Rules - READ THESE
1. Submissions need to be your own.
2. Photos must be taken since this contest was announced.
3. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings, technique and story behind shot.
4. Email submissions to contests@gizmodo.com, not me.
5. Include 800px wide image (200KB or less) AND a 2560x1600 sized in email. I know that your photo may not fall into those exact high rez dimensions, so whatever native resolution you're using is fine.
6. One submission per person.
7. Use the proper SUBJECT line in your email (more info on that below)
Send your best photo by Monday, November 22nd at 8AM Eastern to contests@gizmodo.com with "Cubism" in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs, and use a FirstnameLastnameCubism.jpg (800px wide) and FirstnameLastnameCubismWallpaper.jpg (2560px wide) naming conventions. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email along with a story of the shot in a few sentences. And don't skip this story part because it's often the most enjoyable part for us all beyond the shot itself!
When I'm not running Shooting Challenges, I'm curating my new site, Life, Panoramic. Come on over and check it out.