Project 365 – Day 91: Manifest to Paul-Émile Borduas Mural

March 31 2012

Following yesterday’s failed attempt at doing a Hockney inspired photocollage, I thought I would give it another go today.

There are two great murals by Thomas Csano and Luc Saucier in the Place Paul-Émile Borduas between rue Saint-Denis and avenue Savoie next to the Grande Bibliothèque. The murals on either side of the alley called “Manifeste à Paul-Émile Borduas” were completed in 2 phases in 2010 and 2011 for the MU. Until today, I wasn’t aware of the non-profit organization MU that promotes and supports public art in the greater Montreal area. I will certainly be checking out some of the other projects that they have produced.

To shoot the mural, I decided to shoot at 50mm at f10. With hindsight I would probably try shooting at a longer focal length say 100mm, but that would mean more images to stitch and even at 50mm I ended up with 32 exposures – although I went a bit overkill on the overlapping.

For stitching I used Photoshop and the photomerge feature does a great job of stitching. I did however do some additional move and rotations of many of the layers – so I didn’t cheat too much 😉

Manifeste à Paul-émile Borduas Mural

Being a fan of the British artist/photographer David Hockney, I have often considered trying to mimic his photocollage technique, but this was the first time I made a concerted effort. I’m keen to try doing some more photocollages in the future and have a couple of places in mind that I think could make great Hockney-esque subjects.

Regarding the subject of the mural, Paul-Émile Borduas (1905-1960) was a Canadian painter known for his abstract paintings. He was also an activist for the separation of church and state and in 1947/48 wrote Refus Global – a manifesto that has been considered to be one of the primary causes of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

Here are a couple of other images of the murals.