# Even the photographs got split into two piles > Two stacks of prints, unequal in size, a sticky note on each reading HIS and HERS — the same sorting that divided everything else in the house reached these too. August 22, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-photo-split-in-a-divorce Two stacks of prints, seen from directly above, set side by side with a gap between them. Each print's picture area is a flat block of black, framed in a plain white border. A sticky note sits on top of each stack — HIS on the left, HERS on the right. Nobody wrote a caption for this. Two notes were enough. ## Why does a gap sit between the two stacks? Because the gap is doing as much work as either stack. Two piles pushed together would read as one collection, temporarily split for sorting. A gap left between them turns that same collection into two separate ones — a decision that's been made rather than one still in progress. The width of the gap is the only thing in the frame stating that the sorting is finished. ## Why sticky notes instead of something more permanent? Because sorting like this usually happens once, fast, and doesn't need to survive past that. A sticky note is a tool for a task that's underway, not a label meant to last: mark the pile, move on to the next one, peel it off later once everything's actually been packed. [A related object made for the same event marks it far more loudly](/stories/divorce-party-shirt-worn-the-next-day), printed in chrome bubble letters meant to be worn once. This one is quieter, and disposable in a different sense — meant to be peeled off, not kept. ## Why are the prints face down, or reduced to a plain block? Because what's on any individual print doesn't change which pile it belongs to. Sorting years of photographs into two piles isn't done image by image — it's done by rule: whoever took it, whoever's in most of them, whoever asked for that one specifically. Reducing every print to the same flat block keeps the design about the sorting itself, a fact about two piles, rather than about the contents of any single photograph in either one. ## What makes a good version of this print? The two stacks have to look genuinely unequal, and unequal in a way that isn't tidy. A pair of identical, symmetrical stacks reads as a template, not as an actual afternoon someone spent going through a shared collection. Photographs don't split evenly, for reasons that have nothing to do with fairness. Letting the two stacks sit at different sizes is what keeps the print looking like a real division rather than a decorative pairing. ## Does this need the other person's agreement to put on a shirt? Nothing about the print identifies who either pile belonged to, which changes what agreement is actually needed. No faces, no names, no photograph specific enough to recognise appear anywhere in the design — just two labelled stacks. Some people would still rather check before printing something this close to a real split; others see nothing here that isn't already theirs to describe. Either way is a reasonable way to use the same two words. [A different design built around the same event shows distance instead of division](/stories/the-shirt-your-ex-still-has) — two silhouettes drifting apart rather than two piles of anything. ## Does this work for something being divided other than photographs? Yes — two stacks and two labels work for any shared collection getting split into separate ones. Records, books, a set of dishes built up over years: anything that existed as one collection and is becoming two follows the same shape, unequal stacks and a gap between them. [The same idea shows up at a much smaller scale in a single afternoon's worth of prints](/stories/the-doubles-you-gave-away), split not by a decision like this one but because a second set was cheap enough to make from the start. ## Does it print well? Yes, and the flat black picture blocks make it straightforward. Ash grey needs a light base under the print so the white borders and picture blocks stay clean rather than greying out; black carries the stacks and the linework, one cool teal picks out both sticky notes so HIS and HERS read instantly from across a room. Keep the two stacks' size difference legible even reduced — it's the one fact the whole design depends on. ## How do I get one made? Describe the split at [JustOG](/) — how uneven the stacks were, what the two notes said. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped. Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop). Two stacks, one gap, and a sticky note doing the only labelling either of them will ever get.