Panic

“You know you ain’t going nowhere,
You’re stuck inside while the mind is flying.
You said you’d help me in the morning,
Twisting on pins into my eyes
And dragging on the ceiling below you,
Fixing up the walls with your crooked hands
While you’re miles away, miles away, miles away.

I didn’t think it’ll all end up like this,
There’s spiders on the wall and they stink of piss.
Dead heads lying in the corner
Staring at me making me feel bad.
I put my hands up to my eyes
But the holes in my palms let me find a way
To corner you, corner you, corner you.

I can feel my chest crushing inwards,
Sucking through my skin into my brain.
Oxygen pushing on the window,
Cracks in the glass, let it slip away.
I start to cry and I keep on laughing,
I close my eyes at what’s left inside
And then I’ll run away, run away, run away.

Razor blades floating in the warm bath,
Air bubbles in your veins turning my hands black,
Whispers coming from the next room,
Window cleaner keep on spying.
I put my hands up to my eyes
But the holes in my palms let me find a way
To corner me, corner me, corner me.

Twelve tonnes hammer for my breakfast
Slipping off the edge in catatonic blood.
Multiple decibel inscriptions
Trying all they can in miles an hour.
All face grey and looming downwards,
Sniffing all the time for a ounce of silence
Screaming all the way, all the way, all the way.

Numbers counting down inside me,
Solar System thoughts circle round my head.
False teeth hanging from the ceiling,
Feet looking of the goms of the second son.
I eat my hands ‘cause my legs are crying.
You broke my neck ‘cause I snapped my spine.
I wish you would die away, die away, die away.

For all the time in this land
And all the time in my hand
Slip around in depth found,
Calmness fall once again,
Once again, once again,
Once again, once again,
Once again.”

[ Panic - Anathema ]

I think this work is one of those in which the visual aspect is most closely connected both with the lyrics and the music of the song I wanted to turn into a photo. Not only did I want to represent the mental chaos of the lyrics, but I also wanted to portray the desperate frenzy of the melody.
I may guess that the general idea for this visual rendition of Panic came from these two photos, in particualr the second with the shattered glass. I immediately noticed the expressive power of such heterogenous overlayed photos and, when I subsequently listened to the song, the idea stuck and I knew that was what I wanted for it.
I’m quite positive I would have had much more fun making such a picture with analogic tools, but the digital process was interesting as well: I shot all the textures I used that same day, and they include a blurry window with shut blinds and a brick wall, a building, tree branches, more windows, a spider I found on a poster, a bus stop sign with arrows, more photos of Shinichi and a couple of blurry takes of the basic photo. It took me a lot of work to effetively assemble all the parts, so perhaps I did nothing less than what I would have done in a darkroom (the only difference is that in Photoshop I could easily correct any misstep or mistake).
I can say I’m fully satisfied with this experiment, both on its own and in relation to the concept. I’m going to play with overlayed photos again in the future (as soon as I find some fitting concept, I don’t want to do that just for the sake of it).

This is the final shot from the session with Shinichi, now you can expect something totally different from my next session.

Breaking The Habit

“I don’t know what’s worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream.
I don’t know why I instigate
And say what I don’t mean.
I don’t know how I got this way,
I’ll never be alright,
So I’m breaking the habit,
I’m breaking the habit,
I’m breaking the habit
Tonight.”

[ Breaking The Habit - Linkin Park ]

Some time ago, I mentioned on my Facebook fanpage I wanted to shoot an Asian model. I had browsed through some photography portals but found no one I particularly liked, until my friend Dani introduced Shinichi to me. When we started talking to organise the photoshoot, I found out that not only did Shin have beaufitul features, but we were also on the same wave length on a plenty of things, so the collaboration seemed interesting since the beginning.

Eventually, things did not go exactly how we planned them. We initially intended to shoot with a formal look in an upper-class urban environment, but we had to change plans at the last minute due to several circumstances. So, we ended up with a more alternative, metal-like outfit, with a subsequent change of the basic concept of the session: I kept the urban theme but switched to something more industrial and hooligan-esque, opting for Milan Central Station for the set. This in turn allowed me to bring to life some older concepts I had almost shelved, so the session was very satisfying anyways.
Inspiration for this set ranged from my evergreen Theatre of Tragedy fascination to Röyksopp, which I’ve been listening to a lot in the last few weeks, up to my newly-rediscovered Linkin Park. As we were shooting in one of my favourite locations, Milan Central Station, I tried to include also some iron architecture elements in the photos.
During postproduction, I noticed the whole series had a strong cohesion, perhaps more than ever, so I decided to apply the same posproduction to all the photos, turning them monochromatic with a subtle bluish/reddish hue.

I’m saving one last photo for a separate post, as it is the odd one out and deserves a threatemen of its own due to its particular developement. Meanwhile, enjoy the main photoshoot:

Sleep Now, Quiet Forest

“Sleep now,
The misty touch of green,
The leafy eaves,
The tender moss,
The trees,
The summer dusk gleams in gold.

You sleep now,
You sleep now,
You sleep now,
And rest.

You sleep now,
You sleep now,
You sleep now,
And rest.

Soft changing light,
New shadows
Under beams,
White flowers close
And wait for night.

You sleep now,
You sleep now,
You sleep now,
And rest.

You sleep now,
And rest.”

[ Sleep Now, Quiet Forest - Todesbonden ]

Badde Salighes, Sardinian for "valley of willows", is a very dear place to me. It was originally Welsh engineer Benjamin Piercy’s Sardinian estate, which featured a 19th Century mansion and an English-style garden, which was totally neglected after his death and eventually turned into an actual forest all around the mansion. When I was a child, my mother would drive me there for picnics, often with friends, and those are among my most beautiful memories of the time. This is one of the reasons why I absolutely wanted to shot there and chose it as the location for my Mother Earth photo.


Despite the whole place having shrunk in time (actually it was me who had grown twice as taller, but that was the perception I had) and the then-run-down mansion having been recently restored, it still kept its magic aura making it a real pleasure to shoot there. My mother and I had real fun experimenting with the kaleidoscope of different light conditions the dusky forest gave us, from warm setting sun rays to soft evenfall light, which gave the photos a wide range of moods. This was also the first time I worked with a tripod. I had just purchased mine and as by the end of the set twilight was settling and light decreasing, I had the perfect occasion for some practice. I could reduce the amount of ISO so that even a photo taken with such poor light as Mother Earth could be sharp and not grainy.

I'm still extremely fond of this photoshoot, both for the meaningfulness of such captions as Mother Earth and the Samhain series and because I could finally incorporate a beautful piece of my childhood into my art. This gave the photos a serene yet somehow nostalgic mood that touches me even after all these years.

Here are also the photos for which I modelled, all taken by my mother. You Made My Heart A Hunter and May You Not Rest were taken with the tripod, so my mother practiced with it too after all!

Samhain

“Vandrer ensom på ukjente stier,
Skumringen senker seg.
Roper, venter - stillheten tier,
Skumringen senker seg.

Vakker sang langt av lei,
Myr kledd slette I skogen.
Tåkeslor viser vei,
Myr kledd slette I skogen.

Allverdens I tåkedisen:
‘Kom søster, kom med oss.’
Kaldt, kaldt I kvelds brisen;
‘Kom søster, kom med oss.’

Alvekongen tar meg I favn,
Høye trør kaster skygge.
Glemt er mitt menneske savn,
Høye trør kaster skygge.”

[ Vandring - The 3rd And The Mortal ]

“A frail figure dressed in a cape
Wandering with measured steps,
Haunted by derisive words.

They want to capture the ogress
Wandering aimlessly
Finding pebbles on the ground.
Picking leaves from from an oaktree,
Stalks make rents in green sails.
‘Have some candy’, she says.”

[ Harvest - The 3rd And The Mortal ]

“Dans la forêt, si noire que la nuit peut être respirée...

Through the lucid eyes of witches you’ll see
The things that man can’t see anymore:
That the origin of life still lives in every tree
And in the witchcraft lies the source of all the lore.

Praise the seasons, praise the night.
These witches teach me how to see.
This initiation enlarged my sight:
Now I found the witch in me.”

[ The Witch In Me - Autumn ]

Disclaimer: I may guess perhaps these are not the colours most of you associate with Samhain, but in Mediterranean Italy weather is rather warm until the beginning of November, so by Samhain woods are still green.

I still hold this series particularly dear even after years. I think this was my first serious attempt to tell a story through a sequence of photographs, even though there isn’t an actual plot and it’s more like a series of “stolen moments” of a witch celebrating Samhain in a shrine in the woods. Looking back, I don’t know if the narration works so well, as I feel there is some sort of gap between the first and second photo, but it’s a nice experiment nevertheless.

I really love the overall mood of this series. I think it’s best showcased by the second photo and the related song: sad and lonely. It’s an intimate, solitary celebration in a small and poor shine held by a lonely aging witch. No big bonfires, no dances: just a spare offer to the forest spirits, all she could gather, given quickly and secretly before dusk so nobody will notice. I don’t really know why she’s alone and sad: maybe she’s the last surviving member of her coven and celebrating reminds her of her lost sisters, and she’s held in contempt by her fellow villagers because of her “weird” habits so she’s better not to drag attention to her small ritual. Still, I think she’s not a bitter or resentful woman, she’s just melancholic and kind of sweet. She still hears the calling of the nature’s spirits and wants to honour them, but everything got kind of sad for her.

(Ok, great, I’ve kind of realised I created a character that’s a mystery even for me.)

Each of these three photos is somehow special to me for different reasons: Vandring, despite being the least successful of the three (and also the odd one out), has that motion of the skirt which I really love; Harvest is very sad, I can’t quite describe either the sensation I get from the song, those I had while shoting or those I get while looking at it; finally, in The Witch In Me my mother looks simply stunning, her eyes look so ancient, like bearing all the wisdom in the world, like a real Witch.

I have to say that much of the “magic” comes not only from the location and my mother’s modelling, but also from her outfit. She brought that lace shawl along just in case, and it ended up being what made the difference, the perfect completion to her expressivity.

I’m glad that the reissue of this series proved successful, as I just find it special and am glad it could reach more people than it did years ago. I just feel a bit silly because I feel my heart swell and my eyes a bit teary whenever I look at it.

Yeah, I know I’m weird.

Mother Earth

“Birds and butterflies,
Rivers and mountains she creates,
But you’ll never know
The next move she’ll make.
You can try,
But it is useless to ask why
Cannot control her,
She goes her own way.

She rules,
Until the end of time
She gives and she takes.
She rules,
Until the end of time
She goes her way.

With every breath
And all the choices that we make
We are only passing through
On her way.
I find my strength
Believing that your soul lives on,
Until the end of time
I’ll carry them with me.

She rules,
Until the end of time
She gives and she takes.
She rules,
Until the end of time
She goes her way.

Once you will know, my dear,
You don’t have to fear:
A new beginning always starts at the end.
Once you will know my dear,
You don’t have to fear:
Until the end of time,
Until the end of time,
Until the end of time,
She goes her way.”

[ Mother Earth - Within Temptation ]

I have recently reissued some older pictures of mine I felt were poorly postproduced back in the day, including a photoshoot I had in a place called Badde Salighes with my mother in October 2009. That session turned out to be a very fruitful one with a lot of different photos of both my mother and me, but its main aim was to shoot a photo inspired by Within Temptation’s Mother Earth, one of our favourite songs ever (I mean, both mine and my mother’s). I wanted my mother to pose for that concept because, of course, when I think of something as motherly as Earth itself she’s the first person that comes to my mind. Also, I wanted to portray her before she cut her hair short and this was the perfect occasion.
Initially, my concept for Mother Earth was that of the photo below, which is a rather direct quotation of the album front cover. But eventually, when everything was done and we were about to leave, I saw the mossy rocks near the place we shot the other photo and was so fascinated by them I asked my mother to sit there and pose. I liked that photo so much I decided that would be Mother Earth, with the other being an alternate version.
I think I’m going to write something about the other photos of this session too, so keep an eye on the blog!

Sandalphon

“Listen to the angels scream.
Round your body cages rost.
So warm the venom in your veins,
You are there?

Are you ready to dream, my sweet boy?
Are you ready to dream, my sweet child?
Come with me and taste your flesh, boy.
Are you ready to sleep?

Do you wanna have a dream or two?”
[ Lullaby - Leandra ]

Duke Sandalphon is the current Second-in-Command of Cherubim under Great Angel Gabriel’s leadership. His position is rather ambiguous and definitely unique, as he’s neither a Fallen Angel like the Courtiers of Hell, nor is an undercover agent like Prince Absinthion, but has nevertheless a place saved in the Court as a Duke. This is because, due to his nature and story, he sympathizes for Hell and, among the Great Angels, is the farthest from the Grace of God, almost on the verge of his Fall.
Duke Sandalphon was created at the time of the Great Heavenly War along with his twin brother, Great Angel Metatron, the current Chief of Seraphim, as the key to the Tree of Life, God’s new system of power made aptly to prevent further seditions in Heaven or massive attacks from Hell: he divided the immense power of Heaven into ten Sephiroth and sealed them in the eight most powerful Angels who took his side during the Great Heavenly War, plus the two newborn twins, in order to prevent it from being accessible by anyone but himself and his most trusted Angels. Within Duke Sandalphon is sealed Malkuth, the lowest Sephira. Malkuth, the Kingdom, represents the foundation of Heaven’s powers and the basis of the ties that keep the whole Tree of Life together, without whom it would collapse. Moreover, it acts as a shield absorbing the unholy spiritual energy of Hell and the Sublunar World and preventing it from corrupting the lowest Skies.
Despite the key-role of Malkuth and, thus, Duke Sandalphon in maintaining Heaven’s order, the implication of carrying the lowest Sephira within are rather disastrous in practical terms. For instance, differently from the other Great Angels, who can draw from their Sephiroth’s powers to boost their own, Duke Sandalphon has to sustain Malkuth in order for the Tree of Life to function; thus, despite having huge powers, he can access only a part of them and is subsequently assigned to relatively low-grade duties, often regarding the Sublunar World. Among other things, he’s the one in charge of collecting Mankind’s prayers into light orbs and pass them on to the higher Angels, and is often sent off to the Sublunar World to inhabit Mortals’ bodies or to be summoned by them if needed, in a totally similar way to Demonic possession or invocation. To reinforce his ever-waining powers, Duke Sandalphon resolved to start feeding on the Mortal’s nightmares, whose energy is unholy and consequently more compatible with the one Malkuth absorbs from the lower levels of the Universe; in turn, this further hastens his corruption process, making him subtly scorned by fellow Angels and an easy prey for Emperor Lucifer’s flattery. However, he does not openly side with Hell, as his downfall would have severe (albeit unknown) consequences on his twin brother’s very existence: despite the latter barely acknowledging it, Duke Sandalphon harbours indeed a mixture of resentment and deep affection towards his brother, which binds him into not to give in to Hell... yet.

Sandalphon: development and symbolism

Credits:
Photo, concept, styling, make up, frame design: GothicNarcissus
Manipulation: GothicNarcissus and LunarShore
Model, hair: Dirk Alexander
Additional resources: Amptone-Stock (textures), DeviousRose (sparkle texture), Mithos-2000 (wings).
Special thanks to Kira Novak for helping me with the Hebrew lettering.
 
The first thing I want to say about this work is that I want to dedicate it to a very dear friend of mine, Soy Mallika, for her endless support to my Infernal Lords series, for helping me take a clear decision about this particular character and, more generally, for reminding me I have to stand for what I want and is worth to me.

The second is that this has been the most difficult Infernal Lord so far, both in conception and realisation, and it’s been constantly troubled throughout its development.

I will say it straightaway: Sandalphon is by no means listed as Demon by any source. He’s a very important Archngel in both Jewish and Christian traditions and there is basically no instance of him being a Fallen Angel. The only account of him being somewhat of an evil creature is a plot twist in Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary (woops, spoiler!) and that’s it. So, apart from Yuki-Sensei’s work being so influential on mine, why did I decide to include such a potentially controversial character to the bunch despite the fact that I always wanted to stick the most I could to the “official” sources and not to depend on Angel Sanctuary too much? Why did I take even more freedom than I did for Barbelo, which I already considered a risky move, this time?

The answer is very complex and multiple factors contributed to my final decision. The first is most obviously Kaori Yuki’s rendition of the character, which is simply brilliant: childishly cruel, totally manipulative, with a sort of inferiority complex towards his twin brother Metatron, and most certainly a miserable victim of God’s schemes, it’s a creepy character that gets his fair share of attention; I was also fascinated by his nature of “Nightmare Eater”, which was something I wanted to include in some character of project.

Sandalphon from Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary.

The “official” chartacter I discovered thanks to Kaori Yuki’s was interesting on his own and I particularly loved the fact that he’s openly depicted as having a twin brother, the aforementioned Metatron, even in the kabbalistic sources; this made him somewhat closer to humanity in my eyes, together with the fact that he’s linked to Malkhut, the lowest sephira of the Tree of Life, and carries on many duties in the Material World. He even goes as far as inhabiting (basically possessing) mortals and being summoned in a rather demonic kind of way. So, all in all, he’s an easy character to bring on the verge of his fall.

Moreover, on the one hand Soy Mallika did some further researches for me and found no interesting alternative for a “dream eater” kind of Demon, and on the othershe reminded me that, as I’m not a believer anyways, all of my characters differ from their “official” counterparts, so what’s the point in worrying at all? And since she said she would love to see Sandalphon in a Grimoire or among the Fallen ones, I was glad to fully accept the challenge and give her this “gift”.

Finally, a general plot for a possible Infernal Lords-related novel is starting to take shape, and a character like Sandalphon would be a very useful one, so why not? And there I was, ready to shoot.

Even after I finally overcame doubts and conceptual issues, the story of this Infernal Lord kept being plagued by mishappenings, difficulties and random troubles. First of all, when I accidentally dropped my external hard drive, some of my files got damaged and the PSD with the background for Sandalphon, which I did long before taking the photo, was one of them (actually, the only IL-related file that did not open). I did export the full-resolution jpg image before, but I eventually noticed that the names of the Sephiroth were spelled backwards, so I had to do it all over again, eventually to a much better result. Aftermaths, I found the perfect model in Dirk Alexander: with his blond, flowing hair, he really had something of a badass angel, which was what I was looking for. Unfortunately, it took us many months and several attempts to finally arrange a meeting (coincidentally, quite similarly to Abaddon we first talked about it in July and eventually shot in early December), so the shooting was delayed twice before we actually did it. The shooting itself went quite fine and dandy, after some time for the make up it only took a couple of test-shoots and two or three actual attempts to finally get what I wanted. And then, postproduction started and further problems rose.
I have been very ambitious with this work: the colourful yet abstract background made it rather difficult to effectively blend the model in, the white wings worsened the problem, and the bright Malkhut orb floating among his hands made the lighting quite tricky to achieve. I started the postproduction straightaway while at LunarShore’s house, and this time he did physically help me manipulate the image with his tablet, in particular for the whole light and shadows ordeal (so part of the credits go to him). With the lights set right, I thought most of the work was done, but no, just no, because the blending was painfully difficult. I kept working on the manipulation for the next month and a half and was never totally satisfied. During this time I had to change the wings twice because they looked super-fake, tried different combinations of lights and shadows to blend the model with the background before settling for a slight halo, and changed about a million textures to see what would make the image work as a whole. To no avail, the work still lacked cohesion and depth.
Again, it was LunarShore who saved me by suggesting that, rather than a neutral texture, I added something either hazy or sparkly. I found a texture that worked in both ways, and finally, after ages, the image started working, I got what I wanted and was kind of satisfied with the result. Seriously, I do think DeviousRose’s Ice Galaxy texture is what saved the whole work – which, by the way, is a monstrous 410 MB PSD file which kills my computer every time I try to open it, compared to the average 110-or-so MB of the other works. And gosh, only Legion took me longer from the shooting to the publication, and only because I had to gather more faces for the spirits.

So, now that I’m finally done (and have ranted about how difficult it was to complete it), let’s talk about the symbolism. As in the continuity of my project Sandalphon’s position is unique, this work is in many aspects an “odd one out” in the project. First of all, a particular emphasis is put on the background (which doesn’t show that much in the final work, but you can see it by clicking on the preview on the right), in which I built the scheme of the Tree of Life except for the lowest Sephira. Indeed, even though I got inspiration for the pose from the idea of Sandalphon collecting the prayers into orbs of light, what he’s holding in the image is actually a physical manifestation of Malkhut, which is how it is in the picture. I was really glad to use Hebrew characters (which simply spell the names of the Sephiroth) as I particularly like them and find them mysterious and elegant (yes, I know that sounds stupid), and had fun with the whole copy-paste process, which proved to be a bit difficult because Photoshop screwed the right-to-left direction and I had to manually compose the words.
Of course, much like Absinthion, Sandalphon has pure-white wings and lacks a Seal, as he’s not a Fallen Angel yet (he’s not even an undercover agent, he’s just… confused, if you will).
Also, this work is unique because, despite its theme colour being fandango, the background itself had two dominant colours and the work as a whole tends more to a bluish hue which, in turn, gives it a more heavenly feeling. Anything but heavenly is the theme song, Lullaby by Leandra, which is more connected to the ambiguous, dream-eating nature of the character.
On a side note, I mentioned a more concrete possibility of a written work inspired by this project. Although I sort of have a long-term plot and I’ve even tried to write down a prologue and a chapter, I can’t really say I’m moving in that direction yet. The details of the plot are still unclear, so it’s something I’m saving for the future. Perhaps after the graphical project is done. Oh, and by the way, this is the twentieth entry out of thirty, so two thirds of the Infernal Lords project are officially done! While waiting for the next work, enjoy a couple of test shoots that turned out particularly nice.

Totally blending the lines

“Switch to another dream, to a quiet spite.
Think back at some time when there was a fading touch.
Colour me white and paint the vistas grey.
Everyday there’s an electric ray of all too many shimmer-lights.

And I can see another time,
Another face, forgotten days.
And I can see another time,
Another face, forgotten days.”

[ Astray - Theatre of Tragedy ]

Blending the lines, bending the rules, sabotaging commonplaces and clichés, experimenting brand new solutions, exploring different aesthetics, reinventing ourselves and our work: this is what this photoshoot of me modelling for Briar Rose is all about. After taking a step further in my exploration path as a photographer, I could not miss to do so as a model too, in particular given the chance to work with such a gifted photographer as Briar Rose.
The general idea for this photoshoot was born when I told her I wanted a different, more masculine look, with a much more sober make up and even beard. And, in particular, that I wanted to be more expressive than I have been in the last few years. Even though I initially thought of something more runway-ish, she seized the opportunity to shake me totally out of my polished Dandy character to turn me into a wild indie Mother Nature’s child, totally reinventing my look: shapeless jumper and huge woolen scarf combined with my black skinny jeans and shoes, wild hair, natural make up and there I was, a totally different version of myself directly out of Indie magazine.
That we’d blend the lines and bend the rules was something that showed from the very beginning, when we managed to pack a Canon and a Nikon camera in the same bag and ended up using both. For once, I gave up any directing pretence and just let Briar Rose shoot and direct me without interfering, totally relying on her. The set we chose was as harsh as my look, a small meadow with dry grass and brambles with a very sharp light that enhatched the general effect.
One notable thing is that the further we went with shooting, the more daring we got, so Briar Rose suggested that I tried to pose bare-chested and I agreed despite my general unease in doing so (she is the only one that succeded in getting me topless so far, and this is the second instance), another challenge I was willing to accept. And this is how this unusual (for me) photoshoot was born. I am very satisfied with the result, as it shows a totally different side of me. As Briar Rose said, though, I was not really “myself” yet, as I was showing a different character, an “IndieNarcissus” I stepped in the shoes of just for the photoshoot, but given my general lack of genuineness when I pose, it was a nice outcome anyways. Besides, I really liked the experiment and I really want to try again someday. Meanwhile, enjoy the photos (which I will be adding in the next days as I publish them on deviantART):