Paul Stams on Creating Photomontages

A photomontage is a composite image made by cutting, gluing, overlapping, or digitally combining multiple photographs into a single, cohesive unit. In this presentation, photo artist Paul Stams will show some of his award-winning photo montages--and tell us how he creates them digitally.

^{Please note that this presentation will be held in person in the Madison room of the Central (downtown) Library. It will NOT be on Zoom, but we will attempt to record it for those who can't attend.}

Paul grew up in New York City, where a multitude of art museums and an encouraging mother led to an early appreciation of art--especially that of Salvadore Dali, Henri Magritte, and Frida Kalo. In his 20s, Paul developed an interest in photography, which soon morphed into creating montages of black and white photos in his darkroom.

After a career of teaching, Paul retired to Charlottesville and dived into creating art through photography, now using digital photos, Lightroom, Photoshop, and other editing software. He slowly evolved his "Photo-Synthesis" project, in which he "paints with photographs" by taking seemingly disparate nature photos and blending them into one large image.