The Divine Diptych Project

2011-12-11T05:37:00.000-08:00

Left: rowandevoe
Right: Bronwen Hyde

From rowandevoe's Flickr post:

Selkies are Seal Faeries from Irish and Scottish Myth. In the sea, they are seals who swim with their seal sisters, but they also come on land on nights of full moons and transform into women and dance with their seal sisters. This is when men can steal their seal skins to marry them, as they are known to be the best of and most loyal wives, and they go on to have children and a family on land. But, the Selkie woman is always longing for something. If they discover their seal skins, they have the terrible choice of staying with their human families on land, or returning to the sea with the constant call of their seal sisters, which is so much stronger than their mortal family.

I love this story and concept so much, but was really struggling to put together something I felt captured the idea in the vivid way I would have liked.

My full time day job and other distractions have been a real inspiration-killer for me lately, though I'm working on fixing that [which is also the reason I'm posting this so late...]

My image is a montage of a swirling, animal skin-type cloak I borrowed from a friend for a shoot as part of my 365 days series, and a self-portrait from about 2009. I wanted to capture the sense of the sealskin mingled with water. Merle flipped my image to face right-to-left and adjusted the colour a little in this version to make it work more harmoniously with her wonderful, dreamy image.

Week 21 - Bee Brady and Bronwen Hyde - Memory

2011-09-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. - Marie Antoinette

Over: Bee Brady
Under: Bronwen Hyde

Bee Brady and I were paired for the first time in this round of The Divine Diptych Project, and Marico Fayre distributed some lovely and inspiring quotes for us to work with in creating our images.

Attributed to Marie Antoinette, the phrase kept circling through my mind as I was shooting a series of self-portraits in the bathroom at my friends' apartment in Edinburgh last month.

The memory aspect hinted at by the quote played a part in my thoughts, but for me it also spoke of the repeating cycles that we go through in life. The way that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or that perhaps the more you think things have changed, that you have changed, that often you find yourself back in the same place, a place you have tried to avoid and steer clear of for so long, but before you realise it you are falling back into.

Though both of our images are somewhat overwhelming in terms of detail and objects in the images, I feel it suits the theme, as memory is like that: overwhelming, cluttered, complicated and messy. Every time you recall a specific moment or place you remember more or different aspects, and there is often too much to take in to really remember everything as clearly as you'd like to think you do.

I enjoy the various references to memory and nostalgia in Bee's image: the mirrors, the camera, the clock, the candelabra, the vintage items. The sense of reflection and angles, and being submerged in the moment.

Week 21 - "All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." ~ Martin Buber - M.Fayre and Geekgirly

2011-08-31T21:49:00.000-07:00

Top - Geekgirly

Bottom - M.Fayre

Our themes for this week to interpret were quotes. Our quote was "All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." ~ Martin Buber As you can see we both interpreted the quote differently but also I think quite complimentary!

Week 20 - Bronwen Hyde and Pia - Nightmares

2011-08-14T08:22:00.001-07:00

Left: Bronwen Hyde
Right: Pia

This round of The Divine Diptych Project, Pia and I were paired for the first time, and given the theme 'Nightmares' by geekgirly.

Those who have followed me for a while, will know I dream very vividly, and have quite bizarre dreams. Animals, especially strange ones, or animals behaving strangely, have featured in my dreams regularly over the years, but lately I've been having even more dreams and nightmares that have featured animals.

So when deciding what I wanted to do for this theme, something involving an animal was the obvious choice. The carousel in the square below Montmartre, re-visited on a recent trip to Paris, provided the perfect subject: a creepy, startled, angry-looking horse, which I've processed to bring out the colours to give that vivid, high intensity feeling I often experience in dreams.

I really like how Pia's choice of image of a Venetian mask reiterates the sinister feeling of exaggeration, artificiality, and creepiness. That mask hanging in a dark hallway, lit by the moonlight, would definitely give me nightmares!

Week 19 - Lililly and Bronwen Hyde - All Through The Night

2011-06-12T04:13:00.000-07:00

Left: Lililly
Right: Bronwen Hyde

This round, I again had the task of choosing the themes.

Sticking with the musical motif, I decided to select themes inspired by track names on Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual album, an old favourite of mine.

I gave myself and Lililly All Through The Night as I figured my chances of being able to sort out an image in the evening after work (or even on the weekend) was more likely.

As it happened, we were all a bit tardy this round, but Lililly and I both went with a double-exposure / long exposure image, conveying a feeling of sleeplessness and restlessness (a concept I'm, unfortunately, far too familiar with).

Week 18 - Up Stairs - Geekgirly and Bronwen Hyde

2011-05-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

Upstairs: Geekgirly
Downstairs: Bronwen Hyde

This week there are only four of us participating in the project, so I took on theme duties since I've been work-free for the month, undertaking an artist residency at Hospitalfield.

I have a tendency to trawl my music collection for titles for my images, and having been looking for a title for another image, decided to work the themes the other way around, where the title of a song would form the theme for each diptych.

Being a fan of Michael Nyman's film scores for The Piano and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, I went with two of his relatively simple song titles, so as not to make things too hard for us all [I love his more obscure / descriptive titles myself!]

Knowing I was planning to shoot in one of the turrets at Hospitalfield, I chose the theme Up Stairs for myself and Geekgirly. The piece is from the Gattaca soundtrack, and is quite dramatic and suspenseful, which I think fits with the feel of both of our images.

Week 17 - Reflect - the Tiger Moth and Bronwen Hyde

2011-04-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

This week I jumped back into the fray with recent recruit, the Tiger Moth.

Things have been hectic for me lately, with a move halfway across the world, but I was keen to get back into things with the project.

Bee Brady gave tTM and myself the theme 'Reflect', which you would think would be a dead easy theme to work with, but both tTM and myself found ourselves at a bit of a loose end. There were some ideas thrown around, but various constraints worked against those.

In the end, with the forest at her disposal, tTM took a mirror out and produced her wonderful self-portrait above. I love the tones, composition, feel of the image.

I wanted to work more with the 'contemplate' side of the word reflect, whilst still including an image of a reflection. Initially I was concerned that none of the images I was thinking of using would fit with tTM's detailed image, but when I tried this one, taken at the Redland Bay Cemetery in Brisbane, the tones and composition actually seemed to work with her image, for me. I'm still not sure I can explain why!

Week 17 - Private MaryElise and Geekgirly

2011-03-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

Week 17 - Together / Joined - Pia & the melody censor

2011-03-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

tmc: I was paired with the lovely Pia this week for the theme together/joined, so we decided to have a tea party. We invited her cute little boy to join us too!

Week 16 - Bee Brady and The Tiger Moth

2011-02-26T05:12:00.001-08:00

Top: Bee Brady

Bottom: The Tiger Moth

Bee Brady: Hanna and I live thousands of miles away, but I love how the theme of us both being lost in the stark wintery landscape has come through in both our photographs. The first thing I thought of when brain-storming ideas for my shot was trying to find the right path, that confusion. I see hanna's shot as finding a solution for my lost deliberating self.

Week 16 - Doors Geekgirly and Pia

2011-02-21T13:59:00.000-08:00

Left: Pia

Right: Geekgirly

After a little bit of a hiatus the Divine Diptych Project is back! I was happily paired with Pia for this week and our theme was "Doors".

Pia had a photo that she had taken in the summer of some beautiful doors and a lovely garden. I think that it fits beautifully with my stark winter door. I took my photo with a lensbaby...still trying to hang of it.

Week 16 - Signs - sandandbeautiful (Sarah) & the melody censor

2011-02-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

tmc: For the first week back I was paired with the wonderful sandandbeautiful (Sarah). Our theme this week was Signs.

It has been rediculously cold here, so venturing out to take photos wasn't really a valid option, so I too photos of the sign in the gallery I work in.

Week 16 - Horizon - Leilani Winslade (lani) & Lucy Nuzum (Solarina)

2011-02-19T15:29:00.001-08:00

Left: Leilani Winslade

Right: Lucy Nuzum

Week 15 - Black - Bronwen Hyde and Marico Fayre

2010-09-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

Over: Bronwen Hyde
Under: Marico Fayre

I was pleased to be paired with Marico this round, as I've been a fan of the self-portraits she takes in nature since first being introduced to her work whilst working on the second Female Self-Portrait Artists' Support Group (FSPASG) book, In Her Own Image.

Both of us have been experiencing a bit of a lull in inspiration, and the theme of 'black' was actually harder than I had first thought.

Initially I edited a self-portrait from my archives, an outtake from my 365 Days project, which Marico paired with her image above; and though the images worked together quite well, on seeing Marico's self-portrait, I mentioned I'd also been toying with using an image of bushfire-charred trees from the aftermath of Victoria's Black Saturday.

I went back to those images, selected this one as working best with her self-portrait and best with the theme, and after a quick swap of layout suggested by Marico, here we are.

Week 15 - Purple - Geekgirly and the reluctant flickrite

2010-09-13T11:50:00.001-07:00

Top: Geekgirly

Bottom: the reluctant flickrite

Geekgirly: I was so happy to be paired with Hanna (the reluctant flickrite) after just spending a week hanging out with our cameras in Vancouver! I love how we are both emanating similar emotion in our separate photographs. ;)

This is a diptych project by a group of female photographers who have known each other a long time on Flickr. The project matches two of us together each week with a different theme to interpret how we want, on an individual basis. We then create a diptych using each of our photographs.

Week 14 - Solitude - M. Fayre and the melody censor

2010-08-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

left: M. Fayre
right: the melody censor

tmc: Summer is a busy time for most people, and most (not all) of the participants of he Divine Diptych Project are in areas of the world that are currently experiencing summer, so there are only four ladies able to participate in this round. With only two diptych to create, we decided that it would be an interesting experiment to all use the same theme as the inspiration for contributions - solitude

Marico and I were the first two of the four to have our images ready, so we decided to pair them and post. I think it's interesting that we both chose an outdoor (nature) location as the setting for our solitude. Perhaps it has something to do with life and summer being busy as I said before...

Week 13 - Transportation - Leilani Winslade & M.Fayre

2010-08-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

Top: M.Fayre

Bottom: Leilani Winslade (*Lani)

M: Lani and I were both busy with life this week so this diptych kept getting postponed, but I think the wait was well worth it! (Thank you Lani for your patience.) Lani's images are always immaculately staged and beautifully captured - every scene is a story in itself, like a combination of fashion and cinema. I love her work! As soon as I saw our theme with week I had the idea to use shoes/feet for "transportation" and wanted a scene that had naturally minimal color since I figured Lani would shoot b&w. In the end I chose to convert my color image to b&w (getting back to my roots) because I love how the two images work together graphically.

Week 13 - Superstition - Bronwen Hyde & the melody censor

2010-08-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

Top: Bronwen Hyde
Bottom: the melody censor

tmc: I'm not a strong believer in supersttitions for the most part, so this was a fun exercise for me.

I like the relationship of the light coming through the fence in Bronwen's image and the reflecton of light in the crack of the mirror in mine, and how the focal point of each image is on oposite sides, yet balanced.

I have had the idea of doing a broken mirror shot on my list for some time now, and knew that was the concept I was going to go with from the begining. The trick was to find a mirror I didn't mind breaking. The mirrior wound up being a bit more broken than I originally planned, as I couldn't hit it hard enought on my own to break it, and asked Joel...who smashed it full strength sending glass shards all over the living room table, but it all turned out in the end.

Week 12 - Juxtapose - Geekgirly and Anna

2010-07-19T02:09:00.001-07:00

left: Geekgirly

right: Anna

Geekgirly: I was paired with the beautiful and talented Anna this week! We discussed how we were going to interpret our theme juxtapose before we took our images. We decided that we would take a literal interpretation of the word and have us side by side - although initially we were going to take pictures of ourselves in profile. I am very happy with the results of this collaboration!

Anna: For week 12 I was paired with the lovely Sarah, who I am lucky to have met in real life! She is awesome. I wish we lived closer to each other, but as it stands we are ocean apart.
We did discuss what we wanted to shoot beforehand. It was Sarah's idea to go with the side by side meaning of juxtapose. Initially we were to take profile pictures, but we ended up with these two. I admit, I did see Sarah's photo prior to shooting mine (after all, I was a whole week late with my photo). I decided to juxtapose (sic!) her timeless mask picture with my slightly more contemporary take on being mysterious.

Parallel

2010-07-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

Over: ~Paloma~
Under: Bronwen Hyde

For the Divine Diptych Project
Lena:
The gorgeous and talented Bronwen and I had the Theme "Parallel"
Bron lives in Australia and is a talented Photographer with wonderful self portraits please visit her here
I love the play of sunshine and parallel shadows on her picture!I went more for the look of parallel as in parallel lives, trying to reflect it with a double exposure. Somehow I really like to do that with my pictures lately with the double exposure or overlay feature on my Nikon.

Week 12 - Vivid - sadandbeautiful (Sarah) and M.Fayre

2010-07-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Left: M.Fayre

Right: sadandbeautiful (Sarah)

M: Sarah and I were both suffering from a lack of inspiration and a surplus of interruption this week. However, this lead us both to photos other than our normal self-portraits and I am actually pretty happy with how these combined (though I do want to collaborate with Sarah on sp's one day as I we often seem to have a similar style or vision). When I saw Sarah's gorgeously graphic building shot I decided to pull one of mine from the archives in order to contrast the natural roundness of the heirloom tomatoes with the stark lines of Sarah's shot. Amazingly, the colors are actually rather similar. Also worth noting, Sarah's is shot with a Holga!

Week 12 - Green - Rowan Devoe, Leilani & the melody censor

2010-07-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

Left: Rowan Devoe
Middle: Leilani Winslade
Right: the melody censor

tmc: our given theme for the week wes green, and due to the odd number of participnts this week, we were lucky to get a triptych. I like how the light and shdows in each of the images relate to one another the variety of different greens that still work together.

Week 11 - Earth - Lena & Mmaeb

2010-06-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

Top: Lena
Bottom: Mmaeb
Michelle:
Lena rose to the occasion with her image, which I then paired with one of the many nature shots in my backlog of unposted images. I tweaked the colours in both images very slightly, but didn't want them to be too matchy-matchy. In the thumbnail view, they look like an odd combo, but I like the shared curves, and the sense of hidden worlds in both. Lena's is obviously much more evocative of the theme. I wish we'd had a chance to collaborate more, as she is a wonderful person, but we have both been far too preoccupied with other things to devote much time to Flickr.

On that note, I hope my friends in Flickrland (including the Doomers) can forgive me for being so absent lately. Hope you are all well!

Lena:
I was paired with the lovely Michelle for this "Earth" theme. We were a bit behind but still came up with something that reflects our views on earth. The plants and grass and the colors that we have all around from the living planet in witch we reside.
My picture was a bit symbolic of what lies beneath earth and how former living things keep giving live to what we see on the surface and love so much.

Week 11 - Allegory - Rowan Devoe & the melody censor

2010-06-16T06:57:00.000-07:00

Left:RowanDevoe(Merle)
Right: the melody censor(Susan)

Rowan: For Week 11, Susan and I got the theme "Allegory". We both went with a visual form of an Allegory. As an artistic device, an allegory is visual symbolic representation. An example of of a simple visual allegory is the image of the Grim Reaper which is seen as the symbol for death.

Susan chose to do her version of the Comedy/Tragedy masks made famous by the ancient Greeks Plato and Aristotle where ancient Greek plays used masks to mimic life at their time. These masks are now seen as a symbol for all Theatre.

I chose the painting "Primavera" by the Italian painter Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510), "Primavera"(1482) was first the icon of of the springtime renewal of the Florentine Renaissance and has grown to represent the coming of 'spring" in general by showing famous Roman Gods and Godesses related to springtime. I chose to try and turn myself into "Venus" who stands in the middle of this painting.
Whew! I hope I got at least some of that right!

tmc: I am the luckiest girl in the world! I've had the oportunity to pair up with Merle three times now for this project and all three times the results have been great.

When I selected the themes from a hat for this week, Merle and her partner were given the them Allegory (I'm still sorry about the themes girls!), but her partner was unable to participate in the end. So Merle asked if she could pair her interpretation of Boticelli's Primavera with my Melpomene & Thalia. I of course jumped at the chance!

Week 11 - Fire - Anna & the melody censor

2010-06-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

Top: the melody censor
Bottom: Anna

tmc: I had the honour of choosing the themes for the projects this week. After putting a bunch of different themes in a 'hat", including the three remaining elements, I pulled FIRE out for Anna and myself. I thought I would photograph something involving my backyard firepit, but dreary weather and a prolonged stay away from home forced me to improvise my shot for the theme. I think the pairing turned out wonderfully though!

Week 11 - Perpendicular - Geekgirly and MFayre

2010-06-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

Top: Geekgirly

Bottom: MFayre

Geekgirly: I was so fortunate to be matched with the extremely talented MFayre for Week 11. Our theme was one that we both struggled to come up with an image - or at least I did! I wanted to take an image the portrayed the literal definition of the word "perpendicular" - as in the geometry definition. I love how MFayre's image and mine work so well together! Brilliant!

Week 10 - 1960s - Leilani Winslade & MMaeb

2010-05-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

Above: Lani
Below: MMaeb

Lani and I didn't see each other's shots beforehand, so when I saw hers (a fabulous group shot that totally makes me think of To Sir With Love), I converted mine to black and white and played a bit with my levels. To make mine look a bit vintage, I also worked with a bit of layering and layer masking.

Even though our subjects are quite different, I liked the idea of them being part of the same photo album, hence the wide margins.

Week 10 - Film Noir - Elle Moss & Bronwen Hyde

2010-05-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

left: Elle Moss

right: Bronwen Hyde

Elle: Even though I chose the themes for this week, I was at a loss for what to shoot. Everything I thought of I just never got around to doing and needed a fog machine and well, I got lazy. So I donned a trench and a hat and took the easy way out. Im in love with Bronwen's image which is very Cindy Sherman as well as 'film noir', doncha think?

Week 10: Sci-Fi / Rowandevoe and Sadandbeautiful

2010-05-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

Top: Sadandbeautiful (Sarah)
Bottom: Rowandevoe (Merle)

Merle stepped in at the last minute when life got in the way of my assigned partner getting an image together. The theme "Sci-Fi/Fantasy" and I utilized my gas mask thinking about some futuristic, post-apocalyptic world. The idea for a decontamination shower came to me.
Merle created a deliciously creepy image of herself that, as she suggested, seems as if I had to take a decon shower after my run-in with her! :-)

Week 10-Anna and Rowandevoe "The 1980s"

2010-05-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

The Lovely Anna www.flickr.com/photos/koch_anek/ on the Right with Me on the Left. We had the theme of the "1980s" for this Diptych-ACK! We were supposed to do a Triptych, but one of our ladies had to sit one out. We miss her!

This diptych was a challenge because I was among just a few ladies who was actually alive and walking around, driving and basically on my way to adulthood in the 1980s. Many of the other women were born in the 1980s!

I am channeling Adam Ant in my first prom dress that I wore when I was 16, my big aqua Fluevog boots, a little red velvet military style vest, gorgeous rhinestone jewelry made by my friend Firuzan in Turkey, tribal face paint and faux-hawk made of a twisted french braid with mainly peacock feathers(the green ends all sewn together).

Anna has a softer look with "totally 80s" makeup(check out her eye makeup-this was an Everyday look back then!), and has added chain jewelry, "biggish" hair and a big black bow. She has totally captured the look! She is just so gorgeous-even in 80s crazy fashion!

Week 10 - Horror

2010-05-23T13:01:00.001-07:00

Left: Quizz

Right: Geekgirly

was lucky to be paired with the lovely and talented (VERY talented) Quizz

When I thought of horror I instantly thought of the feeling one sometimes gets when seeing spiders. I believe that Bogna feels the same reaction when she thinks of ghosts. I really like these two images together.

Week 10 - Romance - Pia and Lena

2010-05-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

Romance

Left Pia
Right Lena

Lena: "I wanted to do something light, feminine and romantic to match Pia's picture.
I love her style. I confess I saw her picture first and then I did mine but sometimes is good to break the rules.
I thought the blossoms posture kind of echoes on Pia's hand on the background and her gracefulness.

Romance for me is the essence of love. You can still love without romance but it would be like a beautiful flower robbed of its perfume,still pretty but not complete".

Week 10 - 1950s - hsmithphotography & The Melody Censor

2010-05-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

Top: Heather Evans Smith
Bottom: The Melody Censor

hes - I was thrilled to get this theme and be paired with Susan. As fate would have it, I got my hands on a vintage hairdryer last week. I called on my friend to model and everything came together quickly and just as I had envisioned (which doesn't always happen). I was thrilled to see Susan's image and how well they both worked together

Week 9 - Metal - Solarina~Lucy Nuzum & the melody censor

2010-05-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

Top: Solarina~Lucy Nuzum
Bottom: the melody censor

tmc: Last week completely got away from both Lucy and I, so we are late with our week 9 submission. Our given theme was Metal.

The first thing that came to my mind was precious metals, and how the value of metal has been used as currency throughout history. I had planned to use my coin collection to depict this; alas, my coins were still packed away in boxes so I had to come up with an alternate idea. So I used the glitz and glamour of metal and worked with the refective quality, which I think works really well with fashion shot of Lucy's.

Week 9 - Twilight - Kezzaroo and Rowandevoe

2010-05-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

Left is Kezzaroo(Kerrie) and right is me(Merle)

This week I was paired with the super talented Kezz known for her powers of transformation and ability to recreate well know images. Our theme was "Twilight" and before we took our photographs we only discussed if we should try to create them to reflect the current craze for all things of the Twilight books and movies or if we should do something more traditionally associated with the word "Twilight". In the end we just decided to do whatever we each wanted.

Kerrie's "Twilight" photograph looks exactly like the book's cover and is deceptively simple. It takes a lot of photography experience and "know how" to recreate this image. I love it!

I chose to go with a more classic Fairy Tale version of the word and made myself into a Faerie in her secret treasure trove which might venture out once the sun had set and "Twilight" was upon us. I love how the images contrast each other yet go so well together. I loved working with Kerrie too!

Week 9 - Heirloom - Eva & Leilani

2010-05-03T07:50:00.001-07:00

Left: Eva
Right: Lani

Lani: Eva and I were both fairly busy this week. Because of time constraints this week I set myself of time limit of 15 minutes to complete my image and knew within that time I would create a still life. When I think heirloom I immediately think of either large items like pianos or jewelry like diamonds and pearls.

Week 9 - Cultivation/Growth - Lililly and Anna

2010-05-02T11:08:00.001-07:00

top: Lililly

bottom: Anna

Anna: Week 9 saw me paired with Kate. The theme for this week, chosen by Kate herself, was "cultivation/growth". Kate sent me her image quite early during the week, and I loved her creative take on the theme (yes, I did have a peak).

I knew I wanted to include some sort of plants in my photo, too. I am planning to sow some herbs and thought I could take a picture of that. But I have yet to buy compost (things don't happen fast in my household). So I settled for the second best - me planting a tree. Or rather me trying to uproot it, by the looks of it;-)

Week 9 - pink - MMaeb & Bronwen Hyde

2010-05-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

Left: MMaeb

Right: Bronwen Hyde

Michelle: Bronwen and I didn't discuss anything beforehand, so I was pleased to discover that we had the same tones of pink in our shots. I adjusted the light in mine to echo the brightness in B's window, but that was all it took.

Week 9 - Oppression - Sad and Beautiful Sarah and Geekgirly

2010-05-01T13:49:00.001-07:00

Left: Sarah (sadandbeautiful)
Right: Sarah (geekgirly)

Sarah (geekgirly):As soon as I knew that our theme was "oppressed", I instantly had an idea pop into my head. You can interpret my image as you will, but my goal is to bring across how lucky that we are to live in freedom, unlike our sisters in other countries.

Sarah's image matched mine perfectly! I am so glad that we got matched together as we both (I think) have a similar "bold" style in our images.

Week 8 - Star - Geekgirly & the melody censor

2010-04-26T14:57:00.000-07:00

Left: Geekgirly
Right: the melody censor

tmc: The themes for this week were chosen by Bronwen, and were all homonyms. Sarah and I didn't discuss anything regarding this week's theme of Star and yet we both came up with square format colour photos that are primarily black! Plus we both chose the meaning of the word that refers to the stars of the night sky.

Geekgirly: When I saw that our theme was "stars" I instantly knew I had to do something with my moon mask. I am glad that Susan and I were able to create images that fit so well together!!

Week 8 - Spring - Kerrie and Anna

2010-04-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

left: Anna
right: Kerrie

Anna: Week 8 of The Divine Diptych Project saw most of the girls involved taking a break. Life tends to get in the way, and some things are simply more important than others. Still, a few of us were game, and I was paired with the fantastic Kezz.

All the themes for this week were homonyms (you know, words which despite the same spelling and pronunciation have different meanings). Kerrie and I got "spring", so plenty of meanings to choose from.

I'm usually quite miserable during autumn and winter. It's only when spring arrives that I start to feel alive. I've got more energy and am generally happier. So much so, that I could jump out of joy. And that's what my photo is about.

Kerrie's image just screams "spring". That blossom is awesome:-)

Despite somewhat different takes on the theme, I think the two pictures match well. I love that we both have pinks, greens and blues in our photos. And I love that they make me smile.

Week 8 - Game - Bronwen Hyde & Ligeia

2010-04-25T02:58:00.000-07:00

Left: Ligeia
Right: Bronwen

Ligeia: This week, Bronwen came up with the themes, and ours was "Game". My first idea was to use a rubbick cube or a chess table but suddenly my cat decided to play with this little ball and I decided to go for that idea :) Bronwen made the diptych and she was right about the two images looking like mirrored in the subjects position.

Hide 'n' seek and football looks like good games to play, don't you think?

Week 8 - Generation - Lililly & Rowandevoe

2010-04-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

Right-Lililly
Left- Rowandevoe

For Week 8 our Theme was "Generation". The lovely Kate(Lililly) is expecting baby number 2 and looking so radiant! We didn't really discuss what we were doing doing for the theme, but I think that both photographs ended up fitting together well.

Lililly: When I thought about the theme 'generations' I immediately thought about the next one, the one I'm soon going to be adding to and the one I'm worrying about so much recently. I wanted to capture my pregnancy and giving life to the next generation, but also the 'Mother's Worry' that is plaguing me right now. Its got me thinking a lot about if my mother worried about anything during her pregnancy with me, and the worry her mother must have had being pregnant [while living in Dover England] during the war.'

Rowan: When I thought about "Generation" I was reminded how I ended up with so many Greats and Grands treasures yet I am not married and would not be having any children. I basically saw it as my branch of the family tree was dying off with me. I am wearing my Grandmother's dress, beside me is my Great Aunt Fagella's(she was from Russia) crystal wine glass and I also have her fine china. Behind me are treasured family photographs of my ancestors. I also embellished my hair with some cherry blossom branches to represent "my branch" of the family tree. I wonder who will tell these relatives' stories after I am gone or who will want to listen like I eagerly did. I was the keeper of stories and my family's treasures in my generation.

Week 7 - Faeries - MaryElise and hsmithphotography

2010-04-20T13:29:00.001-07:00

Left - Heather Evans Smith (hsmithphotography)
Right - MaryElise

hs: Technically we are rolling into week 8, but here is our week 7. I had no clue what to do for this one. I remembered having a irish fairy book that I bought shortly after traveling to Ireland. I was fascinated by all the fairy stories, it seemed like everyone there had one! I was excited to see that Mary had also used a jar in her image. I mean, isn't that how you catch them?

Week 7 - Snow White - Susan (the melody censor) and Merle (Rowan DeVoe)

2010-04-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Left: the melody censor
Right: Rowan DeVoe

Rowan: For Week 7 of the Divine Diptych Project I volunteered to pick the themes which meant that they would be everything from Art Movements, Historic Eras to Fairy Tales. I got the theme Snow White (my favourite Fairy Tale). The woman I was paired with had to sit out this week unexpectedly. But another member, Susan aka "the melody censor" (whom I had done another diptych with earlier and loved working with) jumped in at the last minute with a photograph she had and it worked out perfectly.

She (on the left) is portraying the Evil Queen in her disguise of the Old Woman in Rags offering Snow White the poisoned apple with the red poisoned side facing Snow White. I love how scary she looks!

I finally forced myself to take a photograph I have been trying to figure out how to do forever. I have wanted to be Snow White in her glass coffin but haven't been able to come up with how I would create this glass coffin. Since I forced myself to make one for this photograph(it is real, no photoshop) I feel like I have finally crossed a big "Have to do" photograph off my list! It was very claustrophobic inside it but I kept going and squirming in and out of it to push the 10 second timer and them quickly squirm back in(I could only get in it through the bottom so any photos that did turn out were happy accidents). An added bonus were the Tudor Roses in the leaded glass.

tmc: YAY! Lucky me, I get to play twice this week!! Like I said earlier in the week, I wanted to do photos for all of Merle's amazing themes, and when her partner couldn't participate this week, I jumped at the chance to pair with her GORGEOUS Snow White photo. My Evil Queen is a new edit of a photo I took last August, but knew instatly that it would work as the Evil Queen with a little work. Through combined editing on both our parts, I think the pair worked out wonderfully!

Week 7 - Cinderella - Elle Moss & Juliet Home

2010-04-20T04:59:00.000-07:00

left: Elle Moss

right: Juliet Home

Elle: Julie and I didnt really talk about format, but I shot first and told her mine would be portrait and with brown/yellow tones. We didnt discuss what we were shooting or how we were interpreting "Cinderella". I think this tells a clear story of how Cinderella ran very fast away from her man to go home and play with the one she really loves...Mr. Mouse.

Week 7: Romeo and Juliet, :anna: and Sadandbeautiful (Sarah)

2010-04-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

Top: Anna as Juliet
Bottom: Sarah as Romeo

(Sarah) For Week 7 of we were paired up and given the theme of Romeo and Juliet. I right away wanted to discuss more ahead of time than the previous pairings and suggested we do the more iconic scenes (either the balcony or the death scene). I volunteered to be Romeo.

Originally I envisioned us doing a sort of gangster-era style image, picturing Anna in her gorgeous red dress, but life gets in the way as life tends to do, and we got this, which is growing on me more and more. I sorta like the creepy stalker vibe happening (yes I'm kind of a freak, nice to meet you).

Week 7 - The Tudors - Bee Brady & the melody censor

2010-04-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

left: bee brady

right: the melody censor

Bee Brady: I am constantly in awe of how much thought and work Susan (the melody censor) puts into her self-portraits, and as you can see, there is no exception here, amazing !

My shot is a tudor manor house not far from where I live, taken on a country bike ride yesterday.

tmc: I adore Brady's photo of a Tudor era manor house. I can only imagine what living in a country with such a rich, and long history is like, and have to admit that I am completely jealous, not only of the architecture, but the influence of such a rich history on the culture.

My image is one that I have been planning for some time as part of my "In the style of..." series. This is in the style of Hans Holbein the Younger who was painter to King Henry VIII.

week 7 - Sorceress

2010-04-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

Left: Geekgirly

Right: Ligeia

This week the lovely Rowandevoe came up with some interesting themes for the divine diptych project. Ours was "Sorceress". We didn't exactly talk about how each of us were going to interpret the theme and this is what we came up with!

Week 7 - Bronwen Hyde & Lani - Pre-Raphaelites

2010-04-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

Left: Bronwen
Right: Leilani

This week rowandevoe came up with some very lavish themes for the 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.

Week 7 - Kerrie & Kate - Exotic Goddess

2010-04-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Left: Kerrie

Right: Kate

Week 7 - Pia and Meganzii - Sleeping Beauty

2010-04-15T10:27:00.001-07:00

Top: Pia

Bottom: Meganzii

M: Pia and I got to be sleeping beauties this week. :) I also decided that I wanted to be blonde like Pia, so the wig has made another appearance. I saw Pia's photo before I shot mine and wanted to try to capture the same light, ethereal feel. There was an alternate combination, but we chose this one because we liked the modern twist of my close-up (sleeping beauty with a lip ring).

Week Six: Provocation by MaryElise and Juliet Home

2010-04-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

MaryElise: Left

Juliet Home: Right

For week six of the Divine Diptych Project, I was paired with the softly beautiful *MaryElise*. Both of our images are playful provocations, but with the intent to elicit different reactions (although I'm sure you'll smile at her bird's unintentional flaunting of the posted sign).

*I also like our colours and tones together :)

Week 6 - Euphoria - Sarah Schloo and Anna =

2010-04-12T02:01:00.001-07:00

Anna: The idea behind my image was euphoria as a state of exaggerated state of happiness, with no foundation in truth or reality, often resulting from the use of psychoactive drugs. I wanted to create atmosphere of an opium smoking room in 1920's, but with a modern twist. Sarah decided to take a photo based around my idea and, in Sarah's own words, we ended up looking like a couple of crackheads.

Week 6 - Obsession - the melody censor & MMaeb

2010-04-11T21:57:00.000-07:00

Top: the melody censor
Bottom: MMaeb

tmc: The theme obsession was the most difficult to date for me. I stuggled to come up with an that wouldn't come across as silly or cliche. M brought forward the idea of obesession of appearance, specifically body dysmorphia.

MMaeb: I heard a story a few years ago about a man with body dysmorphia who hated his appearance so much that he broke his own nose with a hammer. That kind of obsessive-compulsive fixation with his supposed flaws inspired me for this week's project. I loved the melody censor's image, and adjusted my image to be more in sync with hers (mine was quite a bit warmer originally).

Week 6: Phobia. Rowandevoe and Sadandbeautiful

2010-04-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Sadandbeautiful (Sarah): Left
Rowandevoe: Right

Merle and I didn't discuss really anything as I was hardly online this week (traveling) and poor Merle wasn't even sure if I'd be sending her anything! We just sent each other a few possibilities and these two just fit right together. Fear of the unknown, agoraphobia perhaps? We were delightfully vague. :-)

Week 6 - Scent - ligeia and heather evans smith (hsmithphotography

2010-04-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

Top: hsmithphotography
Bottom: ligeia

hes - Eva and I shot our images separately and I love how well they work together. This diptych makes me feel happy and so glad spring is here!

Week 6 - Artificial - Kerrie and Bronwen Hyde

2010-04-11T05:10:00.000-07:00

Left: Kerrie
Right: Bronwen Hyde

This week was a bit crazy for me, coming in late on the themes as I was on a 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!

Week 6 - Lani and Elle - Potion

2010-04-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

left: lani

right: elle

Elle: Lani and I had "potion" as our theme and we didn't really choose a format at all. We just shot them and put them together. I love the way we took it in a different direction and yet it really works. The pop of red is a nice touch, too!

Week 6 - Quizz and Pia - Lyrics

2010-04-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

Above: Quizz

Below : Pia

Week 6 - Geekgirly and Bee Brady - Absurd

2010-04-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Left: Geekgirly

Right: Bee Brady

Bee : This week for The Divine Diptych Project I was paired with the lovely and very talented Geekgirly. Our theme was 'Absurd', and I think my part at least needs explaination.... As I discovered when I actually looked into the meaning of the word absurd, there is a whole philosophy behind it. Absurdism being the result of humans searching for meaning when there is none. The only escape from absurdity is suicide or faith. Well I was very stuck on how to interpret that, so looking further I saw connections to existentialism, especially Camus, and Absurdist literature, such as work by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear... Ideas started to form.

So this is an absurd self portrait representing existentialism in absurdist literature..... clear ? ; )

Week 5 - Sarah Schloo and Lena Paloma - Grace

2010-04-09T03:01:00.000-07:00

Left : Sarah Schloo

Right : Paloma

Week 5 - Kerrie, Lucy and Leilani- 'Rock and Roll'

2010-04-06T15:48:00.001-07:00

Left: Kerrie
Middle: Lucy
Right: Leilani

This week was a threesome 'triptych', befitting of the theme 'Rock and Roll'.

Week 5: Juliet Home and [Ligeia] - Zippers

2010-04-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

Left: Ligeia
Right: Juliet Home

Ligeia: This week I was paired with the fantastic Julie. And the theme was zippers. I thought about doing a photomanipulation with a zipper as my mouth but Im afraid I'm not that good so I switched for the dress :) I was delighted when I saw both photos together because we didnt set up any format or colour squemes. But they look so great together. The use of ligtning, the soft toning and the dark touch in both shots is really matchy. Im really happy with the results. Thank you Julie!

Week 5: MaryElise and Meganzii - Window

2010-04-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

left: MaryElise
right: Meganzii

Meg: For Week 5 of the Divine Diptychs, I was paired with Mary and we were assigned "Window(s)" as our theme. Mary and I decided to shoot color, and did not have any further discussion on the matter! We both had very busy weeks, so this diptych is a bit late. ;)

I initially shot using not a window, but a pane of glass (my shower door). I was happy with my shots, but they didn't convey "window" at all, so the next day I decided to shoot again in front of my house, next to an actual window. Now, as you can see... my house has ugly windows! However, I liked this shot, and proceeded to edit about 6 different versions of it. When Mary sent me hers, I thought this version matched very well - they both have a sunshiney kind of feel to them - and we were excited to see that we both have some greenery and nature in our shots.

Quizz and Sadandbeautiful(Sarah)

2010-04-05T05:05:00.001-07:00

(Sarah here) This week I was paired with the über-talented Quizz and was extremely nervous about that! Our theme was ROPE. Each of us ended up letting the week get away from us and shooting late. I had a few options ready when Bogna sent me her somewhat macabre image. I ended up playing with my photo bit to match color better, I'll admit (as i was BW before)!

We came out the other side here with a despair/hope kind of thing, we think! All I know is, Bogna is not only beautiful and amazingly talented, she is also incredibly sweet and kind. I adore her and was glad to have the chance to partner with her! I am a bit disappointed in my image as I feel I let my fears about 'living up' to Quizz prevent me from going all out and trying harder.

Week 5 - Patterns - Pia and Heather Evans Smith (hsmithphotography

2010-04-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

hes - I was happy to get the theme of patterns this week. For one, I had a really loud shower curtain and hat that I had been dying to use of a photo. When I saw Pia's pic, another flower pattern and in the same format, I was thrilled. :)

2010-04-04T03:30:00.000-07:00

Left : Bee Brady

Right : Marico Fayre

Bee Brady :I have adored Marico's delicate, wild and stunning outdoor self portraits for a long time now, and getting paired with her was very exciting for me. MFayre and I both take most of our SP's in the woods and given the theme dappled light, I think we and the other artists on the project saw us in the woods this week. I love how this unplanned combination shows how both of us broke with the expected (and also that we both live in currently overcast places..... ;)

Week 5 - Vanishing - rowandevoe & the melody censor

2010-04-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

L: the melody censor
R: rowandevoe

tmc: I was really excited to do a project with Merle, since doing tributes of some of her work earlier this year. We started discussing what formate etc to work in, but we never really came to any conclusions, Both of us often work in colour and square format, so it all worked out in the end.

As soon as I saw the theme vanishing, the idea of white face makeup and a white backdrop came to mind...something of a vanishing into nothingness. Her images are a statement, not about her vanishing, but the vanishing of the green environment. I'm so glad that I was able to make such a plain concept work with Merle's rich, colrful and textural botanical images.

Week 5 - MMaeb and Geekgirly - touch

2010-04-03T01:52:00.000-07:00

Left: MMaeb

Right: Geekgirly

Michelle: Sarah and I are both grateful for the good friends we've made through Flickr, including each other, but we both agree that "virtual" communication is not enough. Human beings need physical contact as surely as they need air, water, food... One of our recent conversations sparked the idea for this week's diptych. Our theme was "touch," and we decided to try to convey the longing for touch, rather than touch itself.

We agreed to shoot in colour, but that was about it. As demonstrated above right, Sarah has this ability to create desaturated images that still retain depth and detail. When I saw her image, I adjusted the saturation and exposure of mine slightly to make the tones harmonious, and played with scale and cropping. These were both horizontal images, but ultimately, they seemed to work best when the space between us was smaller.

Week 5 - Anna and Elle - Spellbound

2010-04-02T06:03:00.001-07:00

Elle: When Anna and I were given the theme "Spellbound" we were kind of at a loss as it could be interpreted so many ways. We decided on square or landscape and color and thought discussed the idea of being 'possessed' or using a ghost type image. I took several long exposure images where my 'spirit' was rising out of myself, but in the end went with this image, also a long exposure. I love how our images are both facing the camera and are both beautiful, feminine and maybe a bit 'possessed'.

Week 4 - Lucy and MaryElise - Time

2010-03-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

Lucy - Right
MaryElise - Left

MaryElise - For Week 4 of the project, I was paired with the lovely Lucy (Solarina). We both went with imagery of a clock, without any prior discussion of how we were going to create our time theme. I love how the blue in her eye compliments the blue of the ocean and sky.

Week 4 - Anna and Leilani - Domestic

2010-03-28T18:37:00.000-07:00

Lani:
Anna and I had the theme "Domestic" this week. I really struggled with the idea of doing a picture around this theme as I cannot obide women being pigeonholed...and still even with my defiant chaotic image of the 'not so perfect' woman in the kitchen...I have still succumbed to the image of a woman in the kitchen.

Week 4 - Quizz and Bee Brady - Letters

2010-03-28T13:34:00.001-07:00

Left : Bee Brady

Right: Quizz

Bee Brady: At first I toyed with both meanings of the word 'Letters' thinking of ideas of stringing the alphabet through the woods. But in the end this very personal interpretation is the one I settled on. These are some of the many many letters I wrote home to my boyfriend last summer from France, where I was working for 6 months as part of a project to identify soldiers buried in a mass grave from WWI. Letters became a very important thing to me as I read many from soldiers of the first world war, written home to their loved ones, as I too, wrote home to my loved ones. I love how Quizz's photo also fits a very similar interpretaton, without us planning anything at all.

Week 4 - Dolls - MMaeb & MFayre

2010-03-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Above: MMaeb

Below: MFayre

Michelle: Marico and I were definitely on the same wavelength this past week, sharing rather dark thoughts about "dolls" and "suburban dystopia" via emails. My goal with the eyes was to make them doll-like, but still human, and what you see above is a combination of real face-paint and stroke-work in Photoshop. Marico did some fabulous solo images like the ones you see above, and in the end, we decided to combine three of her images into one. I think the result is quite eerie, as we'd hoped. We also have alternate combinations in which I'm posed similarly to her, but on a bed. We liked quite a few of these combinations, but in the end, the pairing above won out.

Week 4 - Bold - Rowandevoe and Geekgirly

2010-03-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Left: Geekgirly

Right: Rowandevoe

"oh it would be so scary, but so BOLD to show this struggle visually-Dark/Sad/Medications over and over again/Alone/Misunderstood/and Get up and start it all over again." BOLD to Merle is about facing depression even though there is a risk of losing friends/family/loved ones and relationships in the process. Although not necessarily my experience, I tend to agree that when people hear the term "mental illness" they run screaming in the other direction. Mental illness, especially depression, does not make the sufferer a monster as some people might think. It is also not something that can be cured over night, it takes time AND the love and support of friends and family.

Week 4 - Fresh - sadandbeautiful (sarah) and Heather Evans Smith (hsmithphotography)

2010-03-26T05:33:00.000-07:00

hes- This was a hard theme for me. How to convey fresh? I went with a fresh face / body type of theme and was delighted to see Sarah's citrus shots. The droplets tied both the photos in nicely, only a tweak of the colors was done to make the images work well together.

Week Four - Lena Paloma Elle Moss - Tie

2010-03-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

left: Lena Paloma

right: Elle Moss

Elle: I suggested to Lena that we do portrait and black and white. I haven't work with b/w a lot and she said she hadn't either, so I thought it would get me out of my comfort zone a bit.

I took several closeups of me adjusting a mans tie...with dark nails and lips, in the end, I went with something quirkier (is that a word?) and square. I love the mix of square and portrait and I love the play on masculine and feminine, which was never discussed between us.

Week 4 - Hat - Sarah Schloo & the melody censor

2010-03-25T10:05:00.000-07:00

R: Sarah Schloo
L: the melody censor

tmc: We started discussing format and colour/b&w, but never really came to any concrete decisions before shooting. I love the juxtaposition of how Sarah's eyes are hidden, but mine are the focal point of my image. I think they work well together for being so different in mood.

Sarah: I was really pleased to get hats because I have always wanted to take a picture of this hat that I bought in Vietnam, but never had an idea for it, or got round to it, so this gave me a kick up the bum! I love the beige and brown colours running through this

Week 4- Simple Pleasures- Juliet Home and Pia

2010-03-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

Left: Juliet Home
Right: Pia

Pia: This was the first week I took part in the project and I was paired up with Juliet Home, and our theme was simple pleasures. We did't discuss or agree on anything before taking our shots, so it was a happy coincidence that DoF played such a big role in both of our pictures, and both of us shot such domestic scenes.

As a result, here are our simple pleasures!

Week 4: [Ligeia] and Meganzii - Orange

2010-03-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

Left: [Ligeia]
Right: Meganzii

Meg: I was super excited to work with Eva this week, because she is awesome. When the themes were announced, I was initially excited until I realized that I do not own anything orange. The first thoughts that came to me were something involving orange make-up or paint, or orange tights. I still hadn't quite decided what I was doing yet when Eva sent her shot. I peeked at it, and am very glad I did, because it encouraged me to definitely go with my "tights" idea. This is the first time I've seen my partner's photo before shooting my own, but I was glad in this case because the theme had me pretty stumped. I admit though, that there was a lot of "cheating" going on on my part here. As I said... I don't actually own anything orange. Photoshop was kind enough to help me transform my tan carpet, grey dress, and pink tights.

Week 3 - Flare - Solarina & Ligeia

2010-03-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

Left: Solarina
Right: Ligeia

Lucy and I didn't discuss a lot about this week's shot. We only decide that it will be in colour and square format. Flare was such a difficult thing to achive these rainy days but we managed to do a beautiful dyptich. I only intensified the light of my shot because hers was really sunny :) At first, the dyptich was switched but Lucy suggested to change it and here you have the results. Enjoy it!

Week 3 - Movement - rowandevoe & MFayre

2010-03-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

Left: MFayre

Right: rowandevoe

Merle has to be one of the most prolific artists I know, and one of the most patient. We were both battling illness this week, but Merle was a sweetheart and sent me a dozen or so images to choose from. They are all gorgeous images, but I think this combination works best (an alternate version is on my Flickr stream, if you are curious). I decided to illustrate "movement" using a long exposure on the water, while Merle froze her movement. It was very interesting to see how we both interpreted this idea, and as an added bonus I had fun editing Merle-style!

Week 3 - Masks - Leilani and Lena

2010-03-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

Over: Leilani
Under : Lena

Leilani and I discussed the landscape orientation of our images and that they would be color the rest was all a surprise and our own interpretations for "Mask"
I got her image and tried different layouts.
To do this picture I draw in my face with eye liner and played with some overlay designs.

Week 3 - Delicate/Soft - Anna and MaryElise

2010-03-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

The themes were announced on Friday last week, and Mary immediately sent me an email to ask about my preferences on colour or style of our images. She herself preferred colour over black and white, and she was fairly sure that weather conditions would prevent her from shooting outdoors.

I have already taken my photo before I had a chance to read Mary’s email. As luck would have it, I did shoot indoors and in colour. I was anxious to see Mary’s interpretation of our theme. And fairly nervous too, as the other girls have set the bar really high this week and I was not sure if my image would be a good match for Mary’s undoubtedly gorgeous one.

Mary seemed equally unsure about her image when she finally sent me one, because it was not what she had initially intended. But I loved it and I could not help it but smile when I first saw it.

Unknowingly, we have both used pink in our photos and both our images had some lovely shadows in them. I also loved how my hands mirrored the wave-like dish in Mary’s photo. And I thought it funny that Mary should go for the “soft” whilst I for the “delicate” part of our theme.

After trying out all the possible placing options, we have settled down for this one. We both liked the humorous aspect of the glass perhaps landing on the soft marshmallows.

Week 3 - Night - Quizz & MMaeb

2010-03-19T13:53:00.001-07:00

Left: Quizz
Right: MMaeb

Michelle: Bogna sent me the magical image at left, and I played around with various pairings. I'd taken some shots the night before by candlelight, and played with the one at right to make the colouration similar. I think my subject is a bit banal in comparison to hers, but I like some of the shared elements in this pairing - including the emphasis on our fingers.

Week 3 - shadows - sadandbeautiful (Sarah) & Juliet Home

2010-03-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

Sarah (left) and I (right) decided to not decide on anything ahead of time. When we were ready, we both came to the table with several options, and these black and white images went together eerily well. Her letter shadows speak to my shadowy self left down in the pantry.

Week 3 - Dress - hsmithphotography and Bee Brady

2010-03-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

Left - hsmithphotography / Heather Evans Smith
Right - Bee Brady

Click on it to see it bigger :)

hes - This week's theme came easy for me this week. I asked Brady should we be literal as in a picture of a dress or use it as a verb, like "to dress". We decided we could choose either. I decided to do both, getting dressed in a dress. It just so happened that our dresses are the same color scheme. A happy accident.

BB - I found this week so difficult and I am not even sure why. Just a mental block on 'dress' for some reason. I knew I wanted to do a still life, but I kept changing my mind constantly about how..... I was finally satisfied when I saw how well mine goes with Heather's beautiful self portrait.

Week 3 - Yellow - Elle Moss and the melody censor

2010-03-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

Left: Elle Moss
Right: the melody censor

tmc: One part of this project that I love so much is not only seeing each other's different interpretations of the theme, but different perceptions of day to day life as well. When I first read that I was going to be paired with Elle with the theme yellow, I was a little nervous because I know from viewing her photostream that she has quite a bit of yellow in her wardrobe. Through email she told me that she didn't think she had much yellow.

Having only discussed the format of the pictures and to work in colour, I was pleasently surprised to see that the over all tones of each of our photos fit so well together even though the subject matter is so drastically different.

Week 3 - Stripes - Sarah Schloo and Geekgirly

2010-03-16T16:00:00.001-07:00

Top: Sarah Schloo

Bottom: Geekgirly

Sarah Schloo: ...this was a shot of some Italian biscuits I took last week on a market stall in London, it was one of a few different images from the market that I was thinking of doing for my 52 weeks, but I ended up choosing another shot. I am so pleased to be able to use this one as well!!

Geekgirly: This was the first time during this project that I actually got to see the image and knew what my partner's subject was. Saying that, I don't think that it really made a difference in the subject matter of my image. I had planned on shooting this image as soon as we were given the themes for this week - I guess you could say that Sarah and I were on the same wavelength!

Week 3 - Dirty - Meganzii and Bronwen Hyde

2010-03-15T07:33:00.000-07:00

Left: Meganzii
Right: Bronwen Hyde

The lovely Elle Moss came up with the themes for week three, 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!

Week 2 - Jewelry - Quizz & rowandevoe

2010-03-14T23:10:00.000-07:00

Left: Quizz...
Right: rowandevoe

Quizz: So this is another collaboration - the project we are taking with friends. This particular one is a mix of Merle's photo (right) and mine (left)...and the subject is "Jewelry." Isn't Merle's photo GORGEOUS?

We did not agreed on any details - this is complitely an accident that it match somehow...but I like how Merle's jewelry are "reall" and classy" while mine are mostly plastic and artificial...it creates an extra "story to it :)

Week 2 - SWEETS - Lani & the melody censor

2010-03-13T20:39:00.000-08:00

Left: the melody censor
Right: Lani

We agreed prior to shooting that we would shoot in colour and as a portrait orientation. Apart from that we didin't discuss what to shoot.

tmc: My first thought when I found out our theme was going to be sweets, was SKITTLES! and instead of taking the image above, I took some shots of candy vending machines at the mall. I did a re-shoot and am really glad I did, because I think this image goes with Lani's so much better.

2010-03-12T18:16:00.000-08:00

Week 2 - Silhouette - Sarah Schloo & MFayre

Top: MFayre

Bottom: Sarah Schloo

Sarah and I were both very excited about "silhouette," but looking at our images, I think the theme was "woman in a window" and we just didn't know it.

Sarah is traveling, so she sent her image earlier this week, but due to an email snafu it ended up in my spam and I didn't actually see it until today. How exciting! Thinking about "silhouette" brought to mind women in stilettos and tight skirts, but ultimately I decided to go with something a little more subtle for this theme; looking at Sarah's image, I am glad I did.

Kudos to Sarah for shooting this without a tripod and with very little time. Hopefully she likes this pairing...I love it. Every week is so much fun, especially since I get to work with this group of amazing women. Thank you to everyone for your interest thus far!

Week 2 - Blue - hsmithphotography and MMaeb

2010-03-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

I was concerned on getting my image done in time due to the fact that I was moving to a new house this past week. I took a few photos and they all seemed to say "blue-green" instead of blue. Michelle pretty much spearheaded this, taking a wonderful selection of photos (both still life and self-portraits) and working with our combinations to pick the best match. One of her still lifes was a little more blue-green as well so they worked together. It might not have been exactly the "blue" theme, we can make our own rules and decided to just go for it.

Week 2: sadandbeautiful (Sarah) and Meganzii - Circle

2010-03-12T11:40:00.001-08:00

Left: sadandbeautiful (Sarah)
Right: Meganzii

Our theme this week was "circle(s)". Prior to shooting we decided to shoot color, and in square format. We both shot several different concepts and had a few to choose from at the end of the week. We liked this pairing because of our use of mirrors, and the darkness surrounding the 'circles'.

Week 2 - Paloma and MaryElise - Bed/Bedroom

2010-03-12T08:42:00.001-08:00

Left: *Mary Elise*
Right: ~ Paloma~

Mary Elise and I are joining in for week two of the project.
Our theme was "Bedroom/ bed"
We didn't discuss anything about the pictures we just got this shots and put them together. I love how her outdoor shot colors go well with the one I did.
This was so much fun!

Week 2 - Bee Brady and JulietHome - Music

2010-03-12T02:36:00.000-08:00

Left - Bee Brady
Right - julietHome
Click on image to enlarge

Juliet and I have very similar self portraiture styles already so I was excited to see what we would come up with together. I am delighted with the result ! I love how together they have made a story, like I am listening to her play through the earth. The only thing we agreed on before was that they would be colour and 8" X 10" crop.

Week 2 - Shoes - Bronwen Hyde and Anna

2010-03-12T02:15:00.000-08:00

Left: Bronwen Hyde
Right: Anna

Anna and I have joined in the fun 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.

Week 2 - Hearts/Love - Elle Moss and Geekgirly

2010-03-11T21:19:00.001-08:00

Left: Geekgirly

Right: Elle Moss

The only thing that was discussed between the two of us was that our images would be colour and square in format.

Geekgirly: This quote really was the basis for my image: "One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter." ~ James Earl Jones

Elle Moss: "I knew I wanted to do a self portrait and I wanted to do something outdoors and colorful, but then thought of the pop of a red balloon against the dull 'end of winter' trees. I love the final result and find both images share a charming whimsy."