My Dada poem reads, “Space, aid every living hallways streak between sheer key. Royal finish will apart gardens. Royal”. So I had the word “Royal” in there twice which instantly creates some imagery, “hallways streak between sheer key” gave me the idea to represent the poem with old ghostly images of a hallway, maybe from some kind of castle, going back to the Royal theme. The poem begins with “space” which I feel is also quite ghostly and cold, I have used and edited an image of the moon to represent this. I found an old photo of a hallway which I felt had quite an eery feel to it, the photo has a slight purple look to it due to the aging of it. Therefore I’ve edited the other images in the design to correspond to the vintage looking colour.

I had established a kind of haunted Victoriana style, I’ve used an old, distressed looking paper combined with old photographs. I was going to use a Cecil Beaton Photograph of the Queen but I decided to just vaguely represent some kind of Royal figure. In doing this I used a vintage jewellery manakin neck with a religious, rosary style necklace around it. I feel this has given the image a gothic feel referring back to the theme. The moon is supposed to represent the head of a monarch that haunted the hallways after her death, I have made two coffee cup stains which are strangling the neck of the figure to represent how she may have died. The colour of the stains are also the same as the old paper in the background, this borrowed colour helps the viewer navigate around the composition. These coffee stains could have been left by detectives years later when investigating the monarch’s death. I think having the image of the moon in the composition gives it a supernatural feel referencing the stories of werewolves and the full moon.

The ripped up, burnt paper and distressed look of the piece is supposed to represent the aging of each image and how the photographs would have had many owners through the years as the mystery of the Royal’s supernatural death would have unravelled. I’m pleasantly surprised with the effect that the coffee has had on the image of the haunted hallways, this could lead to further experimentation with this method. I think it would also be good to work with burnt paper and the colours it creates also the negative space it leaves makes some interesting shapes and compositions.

I think the image as a whole and the composition is fairly cluttered but I think I’ve been successful in making the moon the focal point, it’s black border with the black of the necklace makes the Royal figure stand out from the more neutral background. Also the smooth, circular shapes of the moon and the coffee rings juxtapose well with the rough and random look of the montaged photographs. The vintage photograph of the halls gives the image some depth and helps make the white, monarch figure stand out.