This montage is a result of some work in Photoshop.  The dam was too large to capture in a single frame.  And even if I could, most everyone knows what the Hoover Dam looks like.  So I decided to have some fun.  The effect I was going for was a collection of snapshots thrown on a coffee table or taped together.

I started by using my camera's manual mode so all of the exposures would be the same.  I then took a series of photographs, intentionally overlapping them and making them a bit crooked.  Back at my computer, I used Photoshop to add borders (increase canvas) to each photo.  I brought the layers in together in a single image, and lined them up.  For some of the photos, I went back to rotate them slightly -- either to line them up with the others, or add some intentional variability in some cases.  I spent quite a bit of time playing with the order at which the photos are laid upon one another.  As a final touch, I added a drop shadow to each layer (blending option).

The technique has some fun potential, but I want to improve upon it.
  1) I overlapped the shots too much.  Eight photos basically netted 5 1/2.
  2) Most importantly, I should have taken more photos along the periphery.  I think this presentation is lacking overall context.  It feels less like something that is "too big for one photo" and more like something that was hastily clipped from a magazine with an exact knife.  I could have always decided to exclude them later.    .