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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 15 - Black - Bronwen Hyde and Marico Fayre

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

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

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 - Superstition - Bronwen Hyde & the melody censor

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

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.

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

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 11 - Allegory - Rowan Devoe & the melody censor

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

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

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 - & MMaeb

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

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

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"

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

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 - 1950s - hsmithphotography & The Melody Censor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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)

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

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

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 - Kerrie & Kate - Exotic Goddess

Left: Kerrie

Right: Kate

Week 7 - Pia and Meganzii - Sleeping Beauty

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

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 =

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

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

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

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

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!