Once, long ago, I used to think digital collages weren’t “real” art. Then I started to make them myself and realized they were absolutely real and, often, tougher to pull off than a collage on canvas. To show you what I mean, I’ll walk you through Patriotic to the Core, which is my newest digital collage.

I actually had the idea for this collage awhile ago, but it took quite some time to get the first part right. I found a ton of flags to photograph. Some were too still. Some were too pristine. Maybe I needed a war memorial instead. Nope. Definitely a flag. I finally found the right flag. I went back a few times to photograph it and finally got just the right exposure, flag angle and mood.

On to the next part. Easy. I knew what I wanted. An apple. But I didn’t like a single whole apple, groupings of apples, apples piled in bowls. Maybe a core? I started handing apples to people to eat for me. After a whole lot of apple cores, I finally realized I had a specific vision for the core in mind and no one else’s core would do. It only took me a few tries more to get just the right core. And then shooting a few hundred photos to get the right angle. A few hours of editing to get the right effect.

Now, I just had to combine the two pieces to get a digital collage. Mere seconds, right? Not hardly. I used one on top. Then the other. Made one opaque. Maybe not. Went back to the raw files. Cropped, softened, sharpened and everything else. Finally, I ended up with this:

So, what do you think? Is digital collage really art? I sure think so!