August Monthly Special: Triptych Montage

July went by too quickly and I never had a chance to do more than half of what I had planned. But it's time to move on...

This month I am blending the project-oriented mode of my very first monthly special with the theme-oriented mode of some recent months. My ideal monthly special is something that is simple enough for any beginner but that has enough artistic potential to inspire the experienced photo bloggers out there. My attempt at achieving that ideal this month is to explore the possibilities of triptych photo montage.

The triptych as an art form is rooted in early Christianity. Triptych altarpieces have stood in Catholic cathedrals since the Middle Ages. My personal favorite is the famous Isenheim Altarpiece which dates to the early 16th century and really has to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. I once took a group of students on a seemingly endless bus ride from Paris to Colmar just because Rick Steves said it was worth the trip. Lucky for me and my students, Steves was right.

But let's leave the religious history to an interview I hope to do with a certain expert medievalist whose office is next to mine.

How might we use triptychs in photography? In it's broadest definition, all we have to do is put three photos together side-by-side and voilà! you've got yourself a triptych. You have probably seen wedding announcements or greeting cards that do this. If you don't know how to do this in Photoshop or Elements, a tutorial is on the way. So you have no excuse. Start thinking of how you will adapt the time-honored art form for your project.

It's a fun way to showcase kids...
If you have one child, you can do a couple of "fragmentary portraits" and have them flank a more traditional portrait in the middle. If you have two, you could put a photo of the two together in the middle and one of each child on the sides.

A triptych can tell a beautiful story...


or a not-so-happy story...

Wedding layouts use them all the time. The montage of the happy couple seen in the second triptych uses the layout often seen in altarpieces: a larger center image flanked by two smaller ones that could theoretically fold in like panels to cover the middle. The third triptych is more of a storyboard format. (Incidentally, the scene was real. It happened at the periphery of a fashion shoot in Paris and caught everyone's attention.) A triptych can tell a story sequentially, or through more poetic and less evident associations between images.

I'm sure you can think of some more ideas. But if you need more inspiration, it's on its way. I will try to post more often this month. Meanwhile, for more reading, check out this excellent post on triptychs from Japanorama that I stumbled upon late last night.