the body project

#Collaboration #Diptych

Lisa Spencer, Melinda McIntyre

Photographer based in Winchester, MA

In 2022, my friend and fellow photographer Melinda McIntyre reached out with an idea for a collaborative diptych project.  The concept was that each of us-- both mothers, women, and photographers in our late thirties-- would shoot a series of self portraits weekly, focusing on a different body part each week.  Melinda would draw the weekly prompt from a hat, we would have five days to shoot, then I would work to combine the images.  There were no restrictions or instructions when it came to shooting-- any camera, lighting scheme, or concept was game.  But we kept our ideas secret from one another and only revealed our weekly work when it was time to collaborate.  

Often, the results were surprising.  Sometimes our work was nearly identical.  Sometimes it was wildly dissimilar.  Always, though, there was a connecting thread between the two sides that created a new narrative, and the diptychs came together.  Each diptych tells its own story, greater than the sum of the individual images, and greater than the original intent of the individual photographer.  When the work is viewed all together, the meaning is magnified again-- this time, showcasing the entirety of the female form as greater than the sum of its parts, a kaleidoscope of color, shape, and motion-- and all through the purely female lens.