Saturday, September 18, 2010

Art of Triptychs, Diptychs and Polytychs - Intuition Versus Intellect, Left Versus Right

Yin Yang Cityscape

A few years ago I started a small group on flickr called Art of Triptychs, Diptychs and Polytychs. The form fascinates me but I can't help wondering how some of the contributers to the  pool do such a superb artistic and aesthetic job of choosing their images.
I confess my own polytychs are not very artistic. I'm a pretty equal right brain/left brain type of guy. Unfortunately this doesn't mean I'm balanced, quite the opposite at one moment of time I am either one or the other not both.

A chimpanzee brain at the Science Museum LondonImage via Wikipedia

For me polytychs are particularly hard art form because as soon as I start to think about joining 2 or more images together the reasoning/logical side of my brain switches in blocking out any intuition and creativity.

Off And On

I don't have this problem with in camera double exposures. I either plan the 2 shots before I take the first one or I take the first shot and hold it in my mind until I find something that fits with the first shot as the second exposure. In either case when I'm photographing my brain is usually in creative mode. I have been practising doing double exposures for several years now so even the planning is subconscious.

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