Белое: a two-minded project with BriarRose

My dearies, let me introduce to you my brand new project, on which I worked together with my dearest friend, BriarRose.

Белое (“beloe”, which means “white” in Russian) is a series of photographs inspired by the two albums of the same name by Russian electro-folk band Theodor Bastard. In order to understand what this project is about, I have to say a few things about their music: in 2008 they released Белое: Ловля Злых Зверей (“beloe: lovlya slykh zverei”, which means “white: the capture of the wicked beasts”), and shortly after Белое: Предчувствия И Сны (“beloe: predchuvstviya i sny”, “white: premonitions and dreams”), which consists of alternate versions of seven songs from ЛЗЗ, often completely different and always with alternate titles.

Such a project was very inspirational and gave me the idea of developing a similar one: giving two different renditions of the same concept, inspired by each song. And what best way to do so than to work with someone who’s both a talented model and photographer? So I proposed the idea to BriarRose, she accepted, and here we are with fifteen photos: seven shot by her and featuring me as the model, seven the other way ‘round, and one bonus picture inspired by the only song on Предчувствия И Сны which does not have a counterpart on Ловля Злых Зверей.

Both stylistically and conceptually, there are some similarities but each one of us followed our own ideas and working process, so the two halves of the series have a distinct flavour while still being recognizable as related, due to the use of the same location and light conditions. BriarRose developed the ideas on Ловля Злых Зверей, which is the most ethnic-sounding of the two albums and thus fit her style best, while I worked on Предчувствия И Сны, which is more electronic and psychedelic-oriented. You can see a preview of the series on BriarRose’s Facebook page, while I will be posting the whole series day by day as I always do. We both really hope you enjoy this series, because working on it was very rewarding and we are proud of it!