Feature Artist: Photomontagist Ruud Van Empel

Contributor: Muse Origins

I have always looked at these images by Ruud Van Empel with a bit of confusion and fascination. I mean, are these paintings? photographs? paintings and photographs? It’s interesting to go back and forth! What they are though, are digital collages made up of many images in Empel’s archives. What I particularly like about the series is how the children’s dark skin contrasts so beautifully with the nature around them. The kids are so at home and comfortable in the wild. Peaceful does it!

Ruud van Empel creates striking large-format photomontages – collages of hundreds of photographs, combined to form one photorealistic image. The process takes many weeks and originates with a single idea. Van Empel first takes photographs of models and various settings, then merges them with images from a large database of pictures he has compiled over time, gradually developing a single image. The resulting picture is extremely high resolution, allowing him to obtain large-format prints of extraordinary quality and detail.