What the Blender Makes

Jordan Carroll and Katie Cooper are schoolgirls from Manchester who photograph everything that crosses their path. Each other, mostly—but also their friends, their city, the small and enormous wonders they encounter daily. A rainbow over their house. A spider lurking fat in a hedge. A cat doing absolutely nothing in a patch of sunlight. You can tell from the results that they move through their world with their eyes actually open, which is rarer than it sounds.

There’s something I find quietly enviable about that—about having a creative partner who shares your way of seeing. The best thing a friend can give you isn’t advice or moral support or even their couch for the night. It’s a reason to make something. Throw your ideas and your fixations and your half-formed instincts into a blender with another person’s and see what comes out. It usually beats what either of you would’ve made alone, and it pulls you away from whatever screen was swallowing your afternoon.

The result doesn’t have to be good. The result isn’t really the point. What you get out of it—the closeness, the thing that now exists that didn’t before—that’s the actual payoff. Whether it turns out beautiful or quietly embarrassing barely matters. Something happened. You can find Jordan’s work on her Flickr and Katie’s on hers.