What is a diptych? A diptych is... when you put 2 pictures side by side to portray a deeper meaning. In Design, our assignment was to put together a diptych that juxtaposes two big ideas from our personal poems in the form of metaphor. In this assignment, the only real restriction was that we could not include any human beings which really pushed me to think outside of the box to use inanimate objects to show emotion.
Click to view larger versionThe two lines that I chose to use for my diptych were "the fire bursts into life as if powered by a steady stream of gasoline" and "I sit in this dark cube staring at the illuminated screen." I felt that these two lines would make the best pictures for my diptych because they include good sensory detail and can be easily pictured in my mind.
On the left side of my diptych is a picture of a white canvas with multiple neon colored paints splattered on. This was supposed to represent the fire that, “bursts into life,” by showing an explosion of color. The metaphor from my personal poem was supposed to represent the sudden acquisition of an idea or motive like an artist searching for his muse or a grizzly bear finally spotting its prey. On the right side is a picture of a dozen white roses with a single red rose in the middle. This represents being alone in a sense and how I sit in a dark room with only a workstation and my ideas. When I have free time, I like to produce music and lot of the times, I don’t have a thoroughly thought out idea in my head already. This leads to me having to spend a lot of time trying to develop the idea.
When creating the neon photo, I chose a white canvas and neon colored paints because they are opposites. A white canvas is very plain while neon colors are very bright and exciting. I wanted to use very bright colors for the picture to really show the “explosion” and a sort of surge of energy. When choosing the location, I needed a spot that was not very windy, had a flat surface, and was shady. I did not want to take the pictures under the sun because it made the paint colors look different than what I wanted. When I arranged the roses in the vase, I made the flowers push up against each other so that there would be very little space in between them emphasizing the message that even though others are close by, I still feel alone. I took the photo indoors so that there would be enough light to make the picture clear but dark enough to include the feeling of being in a dark room. For both of the pictures, I chose the aperture that would make the picture look most like the actual thing. The two pictures were also both macro shots because I did not want surrounding objects to distract from the focal point.
