Two frames are better than one: this new show demonstrates what the diptych can do for your photography

A 35mm diptych pairing a pole dancer suspended horizontally against warm nightclub bokeh with a luminous golden Pacific sea nettle jellyfish trailing long white tentacles against a deep purple-green background.

Few of us would ever walk around an aquarium thinking about pole dancing. But clearly, Los Angeles-based photographer Elizabeth Waterman did. The result is Propulsion, one of two striking diptych series coming to Photo London this May, and it might just make you rethink the most underused compositional tool at a photographer's disposal.

Albumen Gallery will present Waterman's work alongside Ancient Dialogues by William Stewart at Olympia from May 14-17. Both series are built entirely around the diptych: two images placed in deliberate conversation, neither quite complete without the other.