Love and Abandonment: A Junior Narrative Diptych by Katie Kouvelas (2012)

In my Design class I was assigned to create a photo diptych that would represent an internal conflict that had an external conflict as an effect. In photography, a diptych uses two separate images to tell a story. The internal conflict that I chose for this assignment was ''love.'' Although a seemingly very simple and conventional conflict, I wanted to display love in as delicate of a way as possible. To do this, I photographed two hands lightly touching each other in front of a fabric background to show a soft and intimate depiction of love. By using a light behind the fabric I was able to create an image that allowed details to be shown, while also creating the essence of a silhouette. Through this half of my diptych I wanted to depict a very simple and wistful love. The external conflict that I chose for this assignment was ''abandonment.'' I wanted to keep a consistent story, so I chose to photograph the female character from my first image holding a handful of dead rose petals from her past love. I wanted to have this image be black and white so it could simplistically display the details of the rose petals as well as the female character's hand. My complete idea was to tell the story of the dependency of love and the despair when it does not last forever. This dependency of love by the female character leaves her abandoned when she and her love are no longer together and her struggle to be independent again.