The reactions of David Archuleta fans as David Cook, not Archuleta, is announced the winner of the seventh season of American Idol during a live broadcast.

We’re going back nearly two months to the night that Utah’s David Archuleta DID NOT win American Idol. It’s taken me that long to get to these photographs and piece together what the face of disappointment looks like.

Here’s a little of the creative process. As the announcement was made, I shot photos of the fans from across the arena with a 400mm lens. Photos like this:

I went through 25 photos like this and pulled out these 70 faces:

Once I had the 70 photos on the screen (oh yeah, it’s a 140 megabyte file with 70 layers), I started playing around with placement. It was quickly apparent that smaller groups of similar images would be more effective. Like this panel of people stunned with their mouths open:

And I couldn’t pass up playing with these pieces. Without heads:

and with: