Torn Posters

These partial layers of vertically ripped posters are the essence of torn poster art photography. The multilayered fragments of advertising no longer mean anything having metamorphosed into a canvas of textured typography. This is free abstract street art at its best. The irony is that if this billboard was hanging in an art gallery it would be admired by countless art lovers yet on the street it’s either completely ignored or dismissed as an eye sore. Well spotted, well cropped and well done.

This torn music poster site deserves to be dismantled and reassembled in a gallery of fine art. It’s appropriate that it was found on French soil where Jacques Villeglé one of the main proponents of poster décollage started the movement. The faded, weather-worn billboard with its oblique creased lines gives the canvas a gritty arty appearance. By pasting the posters in a regimented fashion the bill stickers have added symmetry to an otherwise abstract composition. It’s to the photographer’s credit that skilled post production techniques have been applied to enhance the quality of this stunning piece of random French street art. C’est magnifique!

Happy coincidences play a great part in torn poster photography. Often posters are pasted over colourful graffiti which can boost the photos with the addition of brightly coloured spray paint. That’s exactly what’s happened here with the curve of the torn clown's lips being replicated by the sweep of the graffiti tag. Well done for noticing the coincidental collaboration between poster and graffiti and for making a photographic record to rival Smokey Robinson’s ‘Tears Of A Clown’.

Thank you for sharing this photograph. There are all kinds of surprising culprits combining to create torn poster art. Amongst the perpetrators are bill stickers, council workers, vandals, various kinds of bugs and bad weather. Never would I have suspected that hungry goats might be part of the destructive process. Well spotted and well taken.

Simple but effective torn poster photo of a man peering out of what, a first glance, looks like a hole in a wall. I had to do a double take to make sure that it wasn't a real person emerging out of the concrete so it was a good idea to include the background to show that this really is a poster stuck on a wall. The tent folds around the man are realistically augmented by the shadows of the peeling torn poster folds. A very powerful visual composition made all the stronger by the absence of any advertising text interfering with the subject. Well done.

The more I look at this photo the more I like what I see. The incredulous expression on the man's face (with his thinning head of hair) looking up at the torn poster edges marvelling at how miraculously he’s grown a thick grey fringe of hair is hilarious. Nicely observed by the photographer and well done for having the foresight to take a photo most people wouldn’t even have noticed.

This is a great example of torn poster juxtaposition where the uncovered poster underneath the torn poster has turned the advertisers message on its head. Instead of the suave gentleman enjoying an uninterrupted pint of Heineken we suddenly see a lady looking disapprovingly at his alcohol so he embarrassingly pulls the poster flap over his face to hide her gaze. A very well spotted good-humoured image which is exactly what I was hoping to see in this challenge. Cheers!

One of the many facets of torn poster photography is pareidolia - recognising items such as faces in otherwise random unrelated objects. Try it for yourselves and see how many familiar shapes you can find within the residue left behind on this expired poster site - I for instance can see the screaming face from Edvard Munch's famous painting. Even the photographer may not have been aware that there are hidden images lurking within the photo. Well done for your intriguing torn poster photograph and do keep looking for the pareidolia.

This is torn poster minimalist photography. Very little of the original posters remain leaving only tiny paper fragments along with the minute staples once pinning the advertisements to the notice board. Yet with so little visual information we instantly recognise this as a torn poster site. A perfect example showing that less can be more even in the jumbled messed up paper world of torn posters. Well done.

Some bright spark had the foresight to place a frame over these side-by-side posters drawing attention to the haphazard street canvas and giving it authenticity as a legitimate art gallery exhibit. Whoever hung the frame over the Prague street hoarding cleverly transformed it into a creative piece of street art and the photographer did well to give the exhibit longevity by committing it to camera.