fairytales photo project
June 27, 2014
“Since the beginning of recorded time, and perhaps earlier, fairy tales have been a means to confront and conquer the anxieties and hardships of humankind through metaphor.” – Professor Jack Zipes.
Yes!
Here’s one of the personal photo projects – more of an experiment – I’ve been thinking and rethinking about starting, simply entitled Fairytales. Since I began photoshooting people, I’ve always inconsciently felt inclined to have a feeling of dreams and melancholia in my images, of things taken out from all these beautiful stories I love reading since I was a child. Sometimes this turned out as wanted, otherwise not, but I always had in mind a sense of fairytale when shooting. Looking back at all my photoshoots, I realise that what really makes me happy is photographing beautiful girls with long flowing dresses, be it an improvised outfit from a bedsheet or a simple material, in outdoor settings inspired by different stories or legends I’ve read or heard about.
Now, I’ve decided to start this project after having my latest photoshoot with beautiful Maria Avila this Wednesday, at a breathtaking location in Spain, an abandoned mine with a red river and the deserted land looking exactly like Mars. I inspired myself for this series from the greek legend of Persephone and entitled it ‘River of Wailing‘, which is one of the 5 rivers that surround the underworld. And the funny thing is that I had to do this for a class at university, where I had to choose a well-known story and illustrate it in whatever manner I wanted, be it theatre, film, drawings, photography. Obviously I chose photography, found the story of Persephone and knew I wanted to illustrate it, but the pieces felt together just on the day of the photoshoot, when I realised the location is absolutely perfect for my story (I didn’t see it before that day), the clothing, the model and the accessories as well. Best thing is that I’ve got 2 different stories after all from that day, using the same clothing, model and location! You’ll see them soon, but the first image from the ‘River of Wailing‘ series is already on my facebook page.
So, long story short, here I am, starting my first photo project! I know this has been done before and there are some great photographers out there that amazingly illustrate beautiful stories in their images and who, with their work, inspired me to start my own project, bring my personal views on the matter and push my creativity a bit more, as I lately didn’t feel very inspired to do something new.
I’ll blog every series of this project and each of them is going to be inspired by a certain story, character or just an element (mostly greek legends, as I love them, but who knows what else I’ll run into!). I’m open to any ideas, suggestions and collaborations 🙂
♥
