Whenever I come across an interesing image when browsing the net, searching for public domain material, I always save them into my ‘Pictures’ folder. This is done with good intention of creating a product from the image but, more often than not I never get around to it or get distracted with another project. This doesn’t really bother me as it means I have a folder full of cool, vintage images which I enjoy looking at and can use any time I want. Anyway, I came across a photograph which I had forgot I had and I was immediately reminded of how amazing I thought it was when I first saw it.

Unfortunately, I cant remember where I found it and I dont have much information on it other than it was taken in 1918 & some other bits & pieces……take a look:

What appears, initially, to be some sort of fuzzy outline of the Statue of Liberty is in fact, a kind of  ‘human collage’ of 1,800 US army troops at Camp Dodge, Iowa in 1918 forming the shape of the famous icon of the States. Click on the image or here, to see the photograph full size.

Heres a small segement of the foot of the ‘statue’ shown at full size:

How they acheived this, is something I’d really like to know! Every detail seems there even down to the shape of the eye on the face. I think its a really fun and amazing photo. The original I downloaded actually had some flaws on it – dirty marks, rips, some writing. I edited these out just using Paint - which shows that you can acheive effective results using the most basic of software. Part of the reason I wanted to share this with you was to illustrate what fantastic, free to use images you can find online if you are prepared to do the research.