PAPERBOYO
Rich McCor, known as Paperboyo to his 367.000 fans on Instagram, is famous
for his use of pieces of black card which he uses to create images. Probably
this 31-year-old artist is most famous for turning the London Eye into a bicycle
and the Arc De Triomphe into a Lego figure. He also recently used pieces of
black card to turn a tower in Rotterdam into a "test your strength" game, with a
cut-out of a man hitting it with hammer.
McCor started creating his pictures in 2015 in London with his first idea of
turning Big Ben into a watch. Following the success of his London pictures he
has travelled to numerous countries, including the US, Singapore and Hong
Kong, and released a book entitled Around the World in Cut Outs
Paperboyo spends many hours researching buildings so that he can come up
with the ideas for the photos before the shoot. He will then spend about three
hours on the shoot and take over 100 photographs to ensure he has the
perfect shot.
Paperboyo inspires me as he has taken a forced perspective style and created
something completely unique from it. The ideas that can come from him are
limitless and I am looking to recreate some of his work and extend it to my own
ideas. I will start with researching and cutting out silhouettes which I feel will
work with my local architecture and will work on my aperture priority
photography to ensure that the silhouettes are blended into the photograph
even though they are obviously superimposed.
for his use of pieces of black card which he uses to create images. Probably
this 31-year-old artist is most famous for turning the London Eye into a bicycle
and the Arc De Triomphe into a Lego figure. He also recently used pieces of
black card to turn a tower in Rotterdam into a "test your strength" game, with a
cut-out of a man hitting it with hammer.
McCor started creating his pictures in 2015 in London with his first idea of
turning Big Ben into a watch. Following the success of his London pictures he
has travelled to numerous countries, including the US, Singapore and Hong
Kong, and released a book entitled Around the World in Cut Outs
Paperboyo spends many hours researching buildings so that he can come up
with the ideas for the photos before the shoot. He will then spend about three
hours on the shoot and take over 100 photographs to ensure he has the
perfect shot.
Paperboyo inspires me as he has taken a forced perspective style and created
something completely unique from it. The ideas that can come from him are
limitless and I am looking to recreate some of his work and extend it to my own
ideas. I will start with researching and cutting out silhouettes which I feel will
work with my local architecture and will work on my aperture priority
photography to ensure that the silhouettes are blended into the photograph
even though they are obviously superimposed.
PEJAC
Another artist which has used a similar style to Paperboyo is
the Spanish artist Pejac who also works with silhouettes. His
work that appealed to me was based around his use of
forced perspective photography to create the illusion that his
silhouette figures were playing with the world outside his
window.
Pejac gained a following for this photography when he
posted attribute to the French high wire walker Philippe Petit
which celebrated the 40th anniversary of his famous walk
between the Twin Towers in New York. Pejac created some
of these images from his apartment in Valencia in 2011 and
did so by painting the images onto his window and then
setting up the shot so the silhouettes merged with the
backgrounds.
I really like Pejac's images as they are very simple and
should be quite straightforward to recreate. I also like that the
shots created like this will not have any part of a hand in
them unless it is wanted. I will need to think carefully about
what shots I wish to create through windows.
the Spanish artist Pejac who also works with silhouettes. His
work that appealed to me was based around his use of
forced perspective photography to create the illusion that his
silhouette figures were playing with the world outside his
window.
Pejac gained a following for this photography when he
posted attribute to the French high wire walker Philippe Petit
which celebrated the 40th anniversary of his famous walk
between the Twin Towers in New York. Pejac created some
of these images from his apartment in Valencia in 2011 and
did so by painting the images onto his window and then
setting up the shot so the silhouettes merged with the
backgrounds.
I really like Pejac's images as they are very simple and
should be quite straightforward to recreate. I also like that the
shots created like this will not have any part of a hand in
them unless it is wanted. I will need to think carefully about
what shots I wish to create through windows.
my photoshoots inspired by paperboyo and pejac
I used silhouettes cut from black card to produce these images in the style of Paperboyo. I made sure that the camera was set to aperture priority to try and ensure that the silhouette blended with the background. I think the images are very effective at creating an illusion but I do not like how that is spoiled by the hand of the person holding the silhouette. I tried modifying this by placing the silhouette on a stick to remove the need for a hand in the shot.
Pejac used silhouettes painted onto his windows to produce his images. This appealed to me as it removed the need for hand in the shot so I used my card silhouettes and stuck them to windows to produce the shots. Again these produced some great illusion shots but with limitations. It was difficult to line up the shots and the actual shot was limited by the view from the particular window that I was shooting through. The reflections on the window interfered with some shots which spoiled the images.
The work of Paperboyo and Pejac inspired me to experiment with a new way of producing these illusion images combining photography and art. I found royalty free silhouette images and removed the background using Magic Eraser on an iPad Pro. I then open a background image that I have taken and the saved silhouette image in PicCollage. I adjust the silhouette image to the correct proportions to blend in with the back ground image to produce the final picture. Occasionally I open the combined image in ProCreate and add any additional details that enhance the image.
