Murmur: development and symbolism

Credits:

Photo, concept, manipulation, frame design: GothicNarcissus

Model, hair, make up: Knajfer Wintermere

Styling: Knajfer Wintermere and GothicNarcissus
Assistant: Dani Foca
Additional resources: Princess-of-Shadows (texture), Thy-Darkest-Hour (wings), sxc.hu (wallpaper)

Apparently, in these last few weeks I’m finally up to shooting a bunch of photos whose ideas are now years old, both outside and inside the Infernal Lords project. Murmur is one of those. I recall he was the first Demon of the Arts I came across and he gave me the idea for summonable Art-related Demons, which also include Kobal and Naberius. A Demon with the power to teach music to mortals was just too fascinating to be left out. I also remember having the very idea you can see in the photo as early as summer 2010, which was also when I met Knajfer and decided he was the perfect fit for the role. What on earth kept me from doing it earlier, then? Honestly, I don’t know. There were some organisation issues to be handled with care, since my idea involved several persons at one time, but nothing really impossible to overcome. Perhaps, given the importance of music in my life, I just wanted to make sure this work turned out perfect, so I kept waiting until I felt ready. Surely, this paid off, as in three years I’ve become much better both as a photographer and digital artist, and Knajfer’s fashion sense has improved remarkably.

Modern depiction of Murmur as described in the Lesser Key Of Solomon.

An important thing to say, which influenced the aesthetics of this work quite heavily, is that when I started planning this work, I was just in the middle of my most gothic phase. I was going to do a music-related, gothic-looking Demon, so what was the trendiest musical instrument in the scene? Why, the violin, of course; you know, Vampire Lestat, Victoria Francés and all that stuff. Well, that was the first instrument I decided not to use, as I was fed up with it even then. The best thing I could think of for the subject was a harp, and I happened to have a friend, Dani, who used to play it and still owned one. With such a beautiful and important instrument in my image, I could have both an immediate yet not worn-out symbol and spectacular aesthetics in one single move – amazing!
That was perfect, except for several months I just couldn’t schedule a moment when all three of us could be there and shoot. I eventually shelved the idea for a while because I was not in a very Infernal Lord mood for most of 2012, then there was the 2013 hiatus until I finally decided to round everybody up and go for it without further delay.
The shoot went extremely smooth and I had the right photo after just a few attempts. Indeed, the hardest part was to find a way to set the black background in the room, so you can imagine how well everything went. I’d like to especially thank Dani for being so kind to lend me her harp for the photo and give us some advice about how to make Knajfer look like he was really playing (which he “did”, the vibrating string you can see is real). It wouldn’t have looked the same without it, ‘cause blending a stock photo would have been difficult and surely not as good-looking as the real one.

As for the rest, I took Murmur’s seal directly from The Lesser Key Of Solomon with no changes. Although it is an image with a rather wide chromatic range, especially if compared to the other works of the series, brown is the main colour because I wanted a frame which recalled the wood of the harp. Travel by The Gathering was my first, immediate choice for a theme song, because it has some of the most amazing lyrics about music I have ever read.