More Rules: Mergers

Going on about rules, there are a few "rules" that can actually be considered rules - that is, more than guidelines. (Well, I guess you can break them if you are looking for a particular effect.)

Probably one of the funniest effects that you can create, usually accidentally, is a merger. A merger simply refers to the instance where two unrelated objects meet in the image and appear to be joined together.

At the left is a lamp - really a statue in a hotel lobby with a lamp "growing out of its head". This is a deliberate merger in the name of furniture design.

The more usual merger is one like that on the right where there is a mast growing out of the lady's head. In many cases you will see photographs of trees, light poles and stop signs growing out of peoples' heads.

In most cases we don't even see mergers until someone points them out to us. Prior to photoshop and like software, you avoided mergers by carefully watching the backgrounds in the viewfinder before you took the image. Today, many mergers can be removed by using the clone brush in your photo editing program. At the left the mast and the rope or wire have both been removed from the photo.