film noir
Now Playing: angelo badalamenti - haunting and heartbreaking
Topic: divine diptychs



Left: Elle Moss
Right: Me

I'm a little late posting this as it's been very busy around here of late.

The contributors to the Divine Diptych Project also came to a consensus when selecting themes for this round, that a diptych a week was getting too much for most. In some instances they were juggling two diptychs a week, as some of the ladies are also involved in the Female Photographers of Etsy (fPOE) diptych project, Miss Match. Other ladies are relatively new mothers, or in the midst of pregnancies.

So this is mine and Elle's interpretation for Film Noir. Elle came up with some killer themes for this round, which given we have a similar cinematic interest, were actually on my mind when I chose themes, but I'd wanted a larger grouping to be involved, so decided against film genres after all.

Despite both of us being enthusiastic about the theme, both of us had real life getting in the way, and both had issues with various constraints - Elle's relating to locations and lighting, mine relating to equipment (I still haven't been able to afford to replace my camera and / or lens).

I ended up reluctantly digging through my archives, and found this outtake from Day 229 of my 365 Days project, which I felt fit the theme.

Despite everything, I think the pairing works really well and love Elle's image.

You can keep up with the project on the Divine Diptych Project blog. There are some excellent pairings for week 10 up now.

pink
Now Playing: the dresden dolls - pretty in pink
Topic: divine diptychs



Left: Mmaeb
Right: Me

This week I was paired with the gorgeous Michelle, and I didn't see the final diptych till just now, as I sent her my image late yesterday and she paired them up whilst I've been out and about shooting with Mel Brackstone this afternoon.

I cheated a little this week, raiding my backlog of unedited images for an outtake from Day 204 of my 365 Days project. I somehow manage to have whittled down (or worn out!) my collection of pink clothing, and I think I'm now down to two slips, one of which is the palest of pinks, and an 80s style top.

I had a few ideas for still lives, but didn't get around to shooting due to various other half-cocked ideas that didn't come to fruition. Nevertheless, I think Michelle's self-portrait is gorgeous, as is the lady herself, and the match of pinks is beautiful!

game
Now Playing: the cardigans - my favourite game
Topic: divine diptychs



Left: Ligeia
Right: Me

This week I was the one selecting themes, and being uber-nerdy, chose words that were homonyms: words with more than one meaning that are spelt and pronounced the same.

I gave myself and Ligeia the theme of game, and despite the variety of definitions, we both ended up choosing to depict the playing of a game. Admission: I already had in mind what my image would be before selecting the theme, as I felt with so many photos to edit from my road trip, taking something new might be a bit much! So I had already decided to use a self-portrait from Walhalla Cemetery where I look like I'm playing Hide'n'Seek.

Ligeia had toyed with ideas of Rubik's Cubes and chess, but having just gotten a super-cute little kitten, decided to photograph it at play.

She sent me two images which initially I thought wouldn't match very well with my image, but on placing the images together, I realised the brown tones from her image worked well with the browns in the left half of my image. I had originally paired the other image she sent me with mine, but on looking again at this image realised that myself and her kitty, Byron, are in somewhat similar poses and we made a nice mirror image together!

You can see the other images from Week 8 appearing on the Divine Diptych Project blog now.

pre-raphaelites
Now Playing: antony & the johnsons - river of sorrow
Topic: divine diptychs



Left: Me
Right: Leilani Winslade

This week rowandevoe came up with some very lavish themes for The Divine Diptych Project, and selected Pre-Raphaelites for myself and Lani.

I have been a fan of their work for quite a long time, and though I've thought regularly about doing work in the style of the Brotherhood, I've never really felt game; or I felt I needed elaborate props, costumes, etc.

But on giving myself a refresher on the artists involved with the movement, I realised John William Waterhouse was considered to be a Pre-Raphaelite artist, despite not being born until the year the Brotherhood made a stir in London.

On my recent road trip, I took some self-portraits as a tribute to the lovely series of Bathtub Portraiture by a friend of mine, Jessica Tremp, and reviewing the images, realised there was a certain similarity of feel and pose between some of the images and Waterhouse's The Lady of Shallot, probably one of his best known paintings.

With such a strong theme and so much variety in the work of the Brotherhood, it was bound to be difficult to just coincidentally have our work fit together as perfectly as some of the previous diptychs, but I think Lani and I produced images that fit the brief well and work quite reasonably together.

I love the lush, romantic feeling of Lani's image.

artificial
Now Playing: radiohead - fake plastic trees
Topic: divine diptychs



Left: Kerrie
Right: Me

This week was a bit crazy for me, coming in late on the themes as I was on my road trip for the past three weeks.

I was a bit stumped initially on what to do for the theme of artificial, but I decided the blue wig I bought at a theatre's garage sale a few months ago would do nicely as a blatantly artificial subject.

All I knew about Kerrie's image before shooting mine was that she had already taken it, it was portrait format, and that it was on the desaturated end of things, which I totally forgot about when shooting my image, as you might be able to tell by the vibrant blue of the wig...

I love Kerrie's image and her concept for the theme, and despite my initial concern that my image was over-simplified by comparison, I think the two images end up working quite well together, especially as we're both totally 'armless ;o)

I'm loving catching up with everyone's creativity in my absence; and with the wonderful themes provided by rowandevoe for Week 7 I'm sure there'll be some brilliant pairings to come!

Meanwhile, I've finally finished importing and sorting the 11GB+ of images I took on my travels, and will hopefully get to some editing and posting this week.

Have missed everyone terribly, and hope you've all been looking after yourselves!

dirty
Now Playing: dido - here with me
Topic: divine diptychs



Left: Meganzii Right: me

The lovely Elle Moss came up with the themes for week three of the Divine Diptych Project, and she didn't disappoint, inspiring all of us, I'm sure.

Meg and I both had the opportunity to shoot over the weekend, so we dove straight into our 'dirty' theme.

The only discussion we had beforehand was regarding format (which was a very vague discussion, but decided when I took my self-portraits and let Meg know I'd shot landscape), and Meg wanted to work in colour.

Despite knowing nothing of each other's intent, location, props, colour palette, or even whether either of us were doing self-portraits, I squealed with joy when I saw Meg's three image options! Somehow we'd managed to work in very similar colours - green, pink and flesh tones - and both had flowers and leaves as a feature in our composition.

I paired my image with two of Meg's to give her a couple of options, but we both agreed this pairing was strongest: a nice echo between the curve of Meg's hand and the (slight) curve of my body, and a feeling that the out of focus leaves in the bottom right corner of Meg's shot are coming into focus in mine.

Though my original idea had been to combine being dirty, with dirty pictures (a sort of centrefold image) and a dirty look at the camera (somewhat subverting the dirty picture idea with a bit of a Cindy Sherman-esque centrefold - a defiant "I know you're looking at me, but I'm not doing this for your enjoyment" kind of thing) I ultimately decided to go with a less confrontational version of my image when pairing it up with Meg's to give a softer approach that fit more with her image.

We're both quite pleased with our work this week, and can't wait to see what the other ladies come up with!

look at you and your shiny new shoes...
Now Playing: inxs - original sin
Topic: divine diptychs



Left: me
Right: :anna:

Anna and I have joined in the fun of the Divine Diptych Project for the first time this week. I think both of us felt that maybe we didn't have time for a weekly project, but ultimately decided the incentive to create was too good, and were greatly impressed by the diptychs created by the other ladies in week one.

Due to the time difference, with Anna being in the UK and myself being in Australia, our quick emails prior to shooting only covered discussion of format, and that Anna wanted to work in colour (I forgot to ask, but had this very colourful image in mind, so was relieved when Anna hadn't opted for B&W).

I also mentioned I had no issue whatsoever with mixing and matching format: landscape and square, portrait and landscape...

I love Anna's image, but initially was concerned about matching up the bold colours in my image with the beautiful muted tones in hers. But I think the echoing positioning of the shoes, the diagonals leading your eye from my image to Anna's and the red popping in both images brings them together much better than I'd have expected.

You can follow the project here, there's some wonderful artists involved.