When I first started to make pictures around Muskegon last year, I had no real notion of how I was going to piece them together.

My eureka moment came with two rather Eggleston-type, blasé images of a road grader and gas station washroom (now called Orange). As they were taken about an hour apart and on different sides of the city, I didn’t think much of them when I was looking over the contact sheets.

About a week later, I was feeding negative strips into the adapter of a flatbed scanner when I noticed I could do three images at once and shave off some time in front of the computer. At one end of this diptych was an image I was thinking of printing, so I fed all three frames in but neglected to change the selected area of scanning. What popped up was my intended image attached to a photo of construction equipment and tinted industrial sized lava hand soap.

This, I found fascinating; it was simultaneously a jump cut and a logical progression. Here was a way to create a connection without saying a word or posting an image. People could be free to insert their own interpretations. All through placing connected items. Shortly thereafter I began to design images with their pairings in mind.

Certainly, I am not the first to use the multiple image in this way. Nor am I in any way unique in using a single strip of film for each of these pairings. But I have found it to be very challenging and a new method for me. Some are, of course, better than others. I am still developing it in my own mind and in practice.