Sunday

“There are times when we question the things we know.
Never thought that the cracks would begin to show.
We both know love is not that easy.
I wish I’d known that it would be this hard to be alone.
Please, come home.

Is this the end of a love that has just begun?
I always hoped that the best, it was yet to come.
So please, come back, don’t you leave me,
We’re both so young, I know you need me too
And there’ll always be times like these.

Loveless nights, they seem so long;
I know that I’ll hold you someday.
Until you come back where you belong
It’s just another lonely Sunday.

If you don’t come back tomorrow
I’ll be left here in the cold.
If you don’t come back tomorrow
I’ll go.

Loveless nights, they seem so long;
I know that I’ll hold you someday.
Until you come back where you belong
It’s just another lonely Sunday.”

[ Sunday – Hurts ]

Posing while shooting and directing another model, all of this blindfolded: now, this is the new frontier of self-portraiture! You can imagine this was not an easy one to take, so please forgive my cropped head.

So, here is a new work for my Inspiration Hurts project, the last one I can include in the printed book due to time schedule (I have to send everything to print within this week or I will get the book too late for the concert). If you can’t see the connection between the song and the photo, I suggest that you have a look at the videoclip, which I directly tributed. I particularly love it, as you have to watch it till the end to get the right perspective on the enigmatically blended scenes and understand it’s a very original rendition of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.

I was so fascinated by this turning point and its modern interpretation (the mirror door in which Theo/Orpheus sees his Eurydice losing her is pure genius) that I decided to play on that for my photo, building my own rendition of the story with personal symbolism.

I decided to depict the moment of the ascension from the Underworld, with me as Orpheus leading Eurydice (played by my flatmate Giulia) by hand. As you may guess, the blood she’s spilling from her mouth is a direct tribute to the video.

As for me, you will notice two things: I’m blindfolded and holding a microphone.

The blindfold is to avoid looking at Eurydice, either out of anxiety like in the original myth, or accidentally like in the Hurts video; the microphone is simply my musical instrument: Orpheus played his lyre to touch Hades and Persephone with his music, while I am a singer so had to rely on my own voice (technically I can play piano too, but it’d be hard to get my dead wife back by covering Evanescence’s Exodus, which is the only tune I still remember how to play). My new pullover is not strictly part of the symbolism, but is worth mentioning because it’s truly gorgeous, so just love it as much as I do.

(Naturally I’m taking for granted that you already know the myth. If you don’t, you can find it on Wikipedia.)

Technically speaking, you may notice this work is rather unusual for me. I used a noticeably downward perspective together with a wide(r)-angle to deform a bit the edges and give the photo a more dynamic touch. Overall I’m satisfied with the results, although not being fully in control of everything due to the blindfold and having to deal with a very narrow space of the set was a huge limit. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever looked less manly than here, but as I try to make the best out of my androgyny anyway, it’s no big deal.

On a side note, I wish I could use a Volga car for my photo: seeing all those Russian references in the video totally sent my Belarusian half in orbit.