Seven of Cups 1.3

The seven of cups- beautiful illusions. The lustrous visions of hopes and dreams, the siren song of possibility. The haze of what-might-have-been, what-could-be, if-only… The enchantments of pipe dreams, the distraction of the mirage, the lurid obsession of the vision.

Seven of Cups 2.1

The seven was a card where I immediately knew how it should look- fortunately for me, Stephanie was perfectly willing to go along with it. The thing about dreams and hopes and illusions is that they are lovely, and attractive. They draw you in, making you look more closely, losing yourself in the surreality. I wanted to make sure and capture this, and so I knew it needed to be both a pretty card, but also unusual.

Seven of Cups 3.3

As we get into the higher numbers of a suit, I’m always struggling to continue making the cards unique, and this was especially true with the cups. There are a number of things you can do with sticks and pointy bits of metal, but cups… it gets harder. For this, though, I knew I wanted very pretty glasses, and I wanted them suspended upside down. It wasn’t all that difficult to achieve- Stephanie hunted down seven thrift store glasses, and I strung them with ribbon to a frame constructed out of sticks and cat-jungle-gym-pieces. What you can’t see in the shots is my husband Kyle very gamely suspending the whole contraption over Stephanie while managing to keep himself entirely out of the shot. Thanks, sweetie!

Seven of Cups 4.4

I love these pictures- the light was perfect, and I feel like they captured the air of wistful illusion really well. Tragically, just about the second after I had taken the last shot, Kyle lowered the suspension and a piece slipped, letting the glasses fall. I think three of the seven survived. On the one hand, it’s kind of entirely appropriate for this card- dreams are both possibility and delusion; on the other hand, I still feel terrible about it.

Seven of Cups 5.3

Stephanie’s story is here, and the full Flickr set is here.