'The virgin, the temptress and the godess' is a visual exploration of love, longing and beauty from the carnal though to the sublime. The narrative of the research has several subtexts: one that explores female archetypes, the muse as figurative source of inspiration and also beauty as a transcendental catalyst. I have sought to represent a comprehensive vision of the female muse that embraces both the spiritual and the sensual and explores the duality of corporeal and metaphysical yearning. This is done through photographic imagery; the journey that it evokes is an interior landscape that takes place in the purgatory that is longing and ascends to a sublime state of stillness and peace through the experience of the divine.