Photographs and Paper Cut-outs

I really liked the colours, lights and blurs in this photograph, but other parts of the photo distract from them.  I decided to take away some of the image, leaving the light in the photograph.

Instead of  editing the image with Photoshop I decided to come up with my own ways of manipulating the printed photograph.  Using black acrylic paint, I painted over parts of the photo that were distracting from the light and the colours.  I found that this draws focus to the more interesting aspects of the photo.  

On another copy of the image, I used a blade to cut out the same parts that I had painted over.  I turned it over and traced around the edges on  paper, then cut them out and made copies of them.

(photocopy)

I wanted to see what these cut-outs would look like over different backgrounds.  I made a collage using ripped magazine pages and placed a white cut-out over it.  I like how you can't see a clear image in the collage, similar to the blurred people and mix of colours and light in the background of the original photo.  The background gives the effect of motion, and suggests a busy space.

I used one of the cut-outs as a stencil.  I filled in the spaces with a white pencil on blue paper, and then did the same on black paper.  I ripped the blue paper into 5 pieces, then layered 3 of the pieces on the same space on the black paper so that the black shows through the blue paper.  Even though the paper is ripped, the white pencil looks like one solid image.

I started cutting into more of my photos.  This photo is of a musician, but the blur of the photo makes it look like there are three of the same person.  I cut roughly around the outline of each figure and creased the photo so they would stand up.  The simple cuts into the photo turned it from a flat, 2D image into something three dimensional.