In our last issue, we put forth the proposal that images are growing in scope and dimension. And while this remains true, this month’s AfterCapture finds imagery hinged together with compositing and color manipulation, collapsing into itself like a closing storybook folding you into its pages.

For our cover artist, 26-year-old Eva Kolenko, life is a master diptych, “part pop art, part comic strip.” Taken to storytelling in dual panels (the Greek word diptych references two frames bound together), Eva presents her stopgap world in jarring color. Whether its icing and sprinkle-confettied lips next to a splattered cupcake or a man slurping noodles next to a suicidal soy sauce package oozing onto the concrete under him, Eva’s images adopt a “choose your own adventure” narrative for the events that transpired between them.

In the same vein, it is San Francisco-based imagemaker Stephen Austin Welch’s filmic background that make his offbeat, diptych stories move. “It’s about lighting spaces and then letting subjects create their moment, their actions, their beat, their story within the visual essay,” he says. “I think a lot of times still photographers try to pin everything down so precisely that they end up losing their freedom.” Look to his dual image of an empty cubicle next to a closet with a single empty hanger and you get the feeling that someone has just fled, their last business suit in tow, and they’re not coming back. Life in suspension, and the move from mundane to alternate realities, is his specialty.

Meanwhile, oppositional partnership seems to work equally well for Kansas City photographer Joshua Hoffine, whose oxymoronic inclination for mixing classic fairy tales and fear is evident in his title series, “After Dark, My Sweet.” Impassioned by delicate setups and Photoshop aptitude, Joshua shoots horror imagery on a shoe-string budget, compositing photos of his delighted children into storied moments—without beginning or end—of isolated, playful fright.

And finally, there’s James Quantz Jr.. With sucha gift for “mixing humor, drama and… a touch of escapism” into a visual landscape, he is a likely candidate for publishing a modern fairy tale book, wordless and absurd as it maybe. James’ work is a tour of a new world wherein zebras feast at an all-night Denny’s in middle America and a sophisticated woman walks a leashed tiger down the streets of Manhattan.

All said, I propose you read this issue the same way I did—in themed diptych fashion. Hinge that discerning eye for appreciation that comes with adulthood to the eagerness and suspended trust of childhood. You might be surprised what you find closed in between.

Abigail Ronck, Managing Editor