I've always been in love with flowers. During my childhood I passed most of the time reading and discovering all the secret meaning of them (for nothing during my "rebel" adolescence phase I used a flower nickname, ahah! Real obsession).
So one hot midsummer afternoon, while I was scrolling Pinterest, I found an image of a lolita shooting, with a girl who had flowers growing on her face. The shots where simple, in order to show the dress and the atmosphere was very dark - vampyrish, but somehow the character of a Blind Oracle popped up in my mind.
I started gathering all my ideas: flower composition, cages, references... A big moodboard that would have made my design teachers proud. I learned that eurekas won't last long if you don't note everything down!
Once cleared my mind about what I wanted to do and achieve, I started working on the central piece of the shooting: the mask. I used the one I saw as reference and bought a lot of fake flowers in a saver shop and sew them one by one on a net, so when wearing it, it wouldn't hurt your face. Then I carved the horns out of a sheet of insulated foam (unfortunately I don't have progress of it), which was the hardest part because the material is very thick and hard, but delicate at the same time! If I survived doing this, it's all thank to my skills and experience as cosplayer / propmaker.
Now the prop was made, the wig arrived and the dress cleaned (I used one of the dress I usually wear in summer, as it is very simple and has an angel look!), I just needed to find a florist who could help me for the whole set up! And that's why sometimes living in a small town is useful, because everybody knows... everybody. So bae had this childhood friend who is running a flower shop and we arranged an appointment to talk about my project. As a young girl living in a old people town, she was very excited to help me and doing something out of the ordinary! She was so kind she even let me shoot in her shop, so it would be easier to set everything up with a lot, lot, lot of flowers and greens.
What was left was scouting the right model. As she had the face covered, the appearance didn't count much on this shooting, making everything easier but because holidays were approaching (and winter holidays = NO FREE TIME for anybody who owns a shop) I had to search in a very short time in order to do the shooting as soon as possible. I was very lucky to find Rebecca (Berceck on Instagram, be sure to follow her too, she is a very talented seamstress!) answering my prayers, she said "yes" even if it was a last minute proposal and out of nowhere. I swear, it just popped in my mind that she has the perfect fit and I wrote her in caps lock like "DO YOU WANT TO BE MY MODEL??"
That's how you become a very professional artist, I guess.
So the big day arrived! 12th November 2018, when everything started. I felt like my heart was going to explode in any moment as I was freaking excited and nervous, too! Setting everything up was very hard, as I wanted to recreate exactly the image I had in mind.
I spent all the days before the shooting studying Chris Knight's Dramatic Portrait workshop, which helped me understanding a lot of lightning basics and some editing improvements, too. To test the lights, I used a free software that gives you the demo of the whole scenario. The free version is a bit rough, but it helped a lot in saving time during the actual shooting for we already know where to place everything.
I literally fell in love with the cage! I would totally place one in my house if I had enough space. Carola did an amazing job doing the composition, we put a lot of greens here and there to complete the scene, as well as some ruined flowers she kept from throwing as I asked.
Because I didn't knew the setting was going to be so big, the white background wasn't enought to fill the whole scenario, so we had to use lanterns and even more plants to cover the empty spaces. It wasn't planned to look like this, but at last, I liked the concept of this "greenhouse limbo". It kind gave even more magic to the atmosphere of the whole scene and completed the mood I had in mind.
Let the shooting starts! In this kind of shooting it actually takes more time to set up everything and check that everything is alright than... shooting. Once you placed all the stuff and lights, it is all in the hands of the model and you really just need to press the shutter button!
Rebecca was very kind and had a lot of patience listening to my directions and holding the poses. I tried to capture more image as possible in order to eventually compose them later to obtain the final shot. Also, I focused on some details for I wanted to create a sort of narration instead of mere aesthetic. While scrolling the shots, you can see the colors fading to something darker, which represents the doomed future the Oracle sees for the humans and the fear of the latter to accept it.
I still feel very blessed I could realize this big project thanks to these kind people who willed to help me! Finding a supportive team is always the hardest part and I was for sure very lucky! Nothing would have been possible without these cutie pies:
My lovely bae who has like level over 9000 of patience as I become very irritating under pressure; Carola who even if I was a total stranger that popped up in her store with a very stange idea, was very happy to help me with everything she could and Rebecca, without whom I couldn't achieve the perfection in the shots you see. (She is not a professional model, but look! She's like an angel!!)
This is a really important goal for me, as it means I can do beautiful things if I want to do them. Developing a career as photographer is hard as nowadays is easy to buy a reflex and claim to be a photographer. Creating projects from scratches also is hard, but the results are really satisfying and pays all the blood and tears.
I want to show the world what I got, my realities and all the fantasies I had to keep for me because I was a little weird geek girl. I want to impress people and to make them feel through my pictures. All my dreams and demons lie in them.
THANKS FOR READING!
Hainecch
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