All my Friends and Lovers

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    All my friends and lovers
    Will leave me alone
    To try to have a little fun
    One way or another
    I just wish I had known
    To go out walking in the sun
    To find out if you were the one

    - Counting Crows

    When I moved from Liverpool to Bristol a few years ago, the first couple of weeks in my new house, I didn't have an internet connection. I felt rather lonely, and decided to look through some images of my old friends. I grew to realise that I had an incredible amount of them. So many, in fact, that I figured I might as well turn them into a piece of art.

    I created a 7500x5000 pixel Photoshop document, and split it into a grid of 2,730 squares of 1cm each, with a small gap in between. These squares were to become the framework upon which I was going to crop the images of all my friends.

    In the end, I lost track of how many photos I used, but it must have been about 200 or so. The whole job took more than 100 hours work and resulted in a 400 MB Photoshop file

    I had it printed in 20x30 inches, and the poster is now hanging on the inside of my door. Every time I feel lonely, I let my eyes scan across the photos. So many people. So many friends. So many memories.

    You can't be lonely when you have a poster of that many people close to your heart on the wall. I encourage everyone to make one for themselves.

    if you fancy having a go at making your own, you can download the Photoshop grid (76kb ZIP file which expands to a 7.8mb(!) Photoshop PSD) I used to make this. Enjoy!

    [ Peter ], and 9 other people added this photo to their favorites.

    1. solofotones 53 months ago | reply

      Wow! This one looks amazing... A great idea, really! Congratulations!

    2. Spydawebb 53 months ago | reply

      This is a wonderful idea! I may have to try this myself when I get some down time.

    3. vgsgeek 52 months ago | reply

      What an awesome idea. Thank you so much for sharing.

    4. diotina 52 months ago | reply

      This is a fantastic idea, I may follow suit too!

    5. 0olong 52 months ago | reply

      This is pretty cool, but the photos are so tiny! Can we not see it big? :(

    6. Photocritic.org 52 months ago | reply

      Psst, 0olong: Click 'all sizes' and then 'original', and there's a glorious 3000x2000 pixel version waiting for you!

    7. diotina 52 months ago | reply

      Um, it's not giving your viewers the 'All sizes' option...

    8. Photocritic.org 52 months ago | reply

      Hot damn, I'm an idiot.

      Fixed now - you should now see a 'all sizes' button leading you to high res photos!

      Sorry about that, I completely forgot that I had fiddled with the privacy / copyright settings :o

    9. tres.jolie 52 months ago | reply

      What a sweet story. Looks like a lot of work and I dont think my little lap top could handle working with a 400mb file but I will have to give it a go when I upgrade.

    10. 0olong 52 months ago | reply

      Yay! Thanks man, that's so much better. :) There are some really lovely shots in there!

    11. paul.n.robinson [a flamin' kiwi] 52 months ago | reply

      brillant idea and very well executed!

    12. RexyInc 52 months ago | reply

      nice work - but wayyy too much time to do it.. by just using googles free picasa's picture collage you can get simular results - doing one right now for you.. . ok done.. uploading.. :) find it here..

      www.flickr.com/photos/rexyinc/3321471050/

      and

      one more for fun -

      www.flickr.com/photos/rexyinc/3321471056/

      ok not as funky as your 100 hour work, but for 30seconds, i'm happy. :)

    13. Vinit Sharma 52 months ago | reply

      Fabulous work. Lack of internet can also bring lot of creativity.

    14. bimma 45 months ago | reply

      nice idea. not sure I have that many good friends. thanks for sharing though. you have a cat on there as well :D
      --
      Seen on twittergadget.com ( ?² )

    15. Photocritic.org 45 months ago | reply

      Bimma: Make one with all your bad friends, then :-)

    16. bimma 45 months ago | reply

      hahaha! :D

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