Only You

“When the night is young but it makes you feel much older
And you’re comatose each waking hour of life.
When the days go by but the darkness lingers longer
And before you know it life is one long night.

But when I close my eyes, I see you stand before me
And if you take my hand, I’ll leave it all behind.

Because only you can set me free,
So hold me close just like the first time.

Flashing lights illuminate your halo
And my pounding heartbeat thunders like a drum.
When we used to dance we’d never cast a shadow
‘Cause there was only you and me when we were young.

And in a sea of scars the first cut is the deepest.
No matter where you are, I’ll always think of you.

Because only you can set me free,
So hold me close just like the first time
And show me how it used to be,
Because only you can set me free.
Only you can set me free.”

[ Only You – Hurts ]

You know what they say, right? Make hay while the sun shines. So while I was at it, I brought home another Inspiration Hurts photo.
Fortunately, Only You doesn’t have as troubled a history as Wonderful Life: I listened to the song many times (it’s one of my favourites off Exile) so I came up with a concept quite early on; at about the same time, I came across this photo by Thomas Lavelle and decided to kinda sorta steal a page from it because that halo looked incredibly cool and something similar would fit the photo. And then I kind of left it at that for a while: I didn’t really have in mind any specific models for it, so I just waited around to get a girl, a boy and my camera in the same room. It just happened to be Jelena and me after we shot Wonderful Life.

Only You has a clubby feel to it, both in the music and lyrics, but I didn’t want to take that direction: I wanted to focus more on the emotional bond it describes, and represent it by playing up the sacred imagery evoked (because if I can put a halo in it, damn right I’m going to do that). So I pictured the boy character as some sort of atoner longing for the grace of this idealised, holy-like woman, not quite sure enough to be worthy of grasping it again. Jelena really looks the part of the angelic woman (besides being an incredibly nice person all around) so, besides a pragmatic casting choice, it was also a natural one. And I was available and already goomed to pose, so I went for it.
Visually, I played up the contrast betweem the two characters by juxtaposing a light outfit with a dark one. I also went for a strong colour wash to give the photo both a dreamlike and fashion-oriented look.
As I mentioned, I strongly took inspiration from an existing photo for the halo, but I hope I made mine different enough –  I positioned differently and had the rays start directly from the head – for it to look like a hommage rather than a rip off.

So there it is, Only You. Lately I feel driven as hell, especially in regards to this project; let’s hope that I keep momentum, because I’m really, really tired of waiting around.

Wonderful Life

“On a bridge across the Severn on a Saturday night
Susie meets the man of her dreams.
He says that he got in trouble and, if she doesn’t mind,
He doesn’t want the company.
But there’s something in the air, they share a look in silence
And everything is understood,
And Susie grabs her man and puts a grip on his hand
As the rain puts a tear in his eye.

She says,
“Don’t let go.
Never give up, it’s such a wonderful life.
Don’t let go.
Never give up, it’s such a wonderful life.”

Driving through the city to the Temple station
He cries into the leather seat,
And Susie knows her baby was a family man
But the world has got him down on his knees.
So she throws him at the wall, her kisses burn like fire
And suddenly he starts to believe,
And he takes her in his arms and he doesn’t know why,
But he thinks that he begins to see.

She says,
“Don’t let go.
Never give up, it’s such a wonderful life.
Don’t let go.
Never give up, it’s such a wonderful life.
Don’t let go.
Never give up, it’s such a wonderful life.
Don’t let go.
Never give up, it’s such a wonderful life.””

[ Wonderful Life – Hurts ]

When you talk about Hurts, Wonderful Life is probably the first thing that comes to mind: it’s been their breakthrough single, as well as their first video (which they then re-shoot more professionally), it’s legitimately a classic in their repertoir, an incredibly good soong by its own merits… it’s really Classic Hurts, if you will.

Indeed, when I first started listening to Hurts and tackling visual renditions of their music, I sort of had a go at Wonderful Life. Not in a deliberate, planned way like I did Silver Lining, but while I was dressed and dolled up for that one, I took a few more photos on the same location, as an afterthought, and one of them could retroactively fit loosely the song, what with the bridge, the industrial aesthetics that recalled the single cover, the gloomy weather and so on.

Keep in mind that at this point the Inspiration Hurts project as such wasn’t a thing yet: I only had plans for Evelyn besides Silver Lining, so I kept an “anything goes” approach to the rest of Hurts’ music, and this Wonderful Life photo just happened along the way. When ideas for visual renditions started piling up and I found mysel with a coherent project in my hands, things got a bit more difficult: at first I kept the photo and it even made it onto the photobook I gifted to the band (because I didn’t have that much material), but the song could give so much more visually.

See, while I plan the Inspiration Hurts photos meticulously, fine-tune the symbolism to best represent the songs and so on, I’m still open to exceptions and sudden gusts of inspiration; so when pictures like Locked Out Of Heaven, The Crow or Kaleidoscope happened, I happily kept them as part of the project even though I had other ideas about those songs (or none at all by that point). The thing is, those I consider good photos, which Wonderful Life 1.0… eh, just wasn’t. The light is dull, I look weird, the image isn’t overall particularly striking… I realised Wonderful Life deserved better the moment I decided this would be a long-running project, so I demoted that to one of “companion pictures” and came up with a specific concept. Which is the one you can see here, and we’re talking, like, 2011.

I mean, beside being one of the “hurtsest” songs of all, the lyrics describe very precisely the scene, so it’s quite easy to visualise it. It has got to be posh, melancholic, monochrome, with Susie holding the man of her dreams from jumping off the bridge: the photo basically shoots itself. And yet, eight years and three Hurts albums later, I still hadn’t shot it, what gives?

The thing is, I’m an idealist and I value friendship a lot. Of course, in this project I really care about, I wanted people who are special to me, not just random pretty nobodies. How cool would a photo like Wonderful Life be with two people who genuinely love each other, however platonically, and who’ve been there for each other time and time again? And that’s basically what’s been keeping not only this photo, but the whole Inspiration Hurts project on hold forever.

Because, I mean, when you’ve basically got three options for cities with either a river or artificial canals to pick from, it can’t be that difficult to find a goddamn bridge to put two people on and get it over with, can it? You can’t just spare one free afternoon in years for that, can you? Like, okay, at some point early on I spoke about one specific bridge in a specific city (which was within public transport reach, anyway), but I’ve just read my notes and they just say, “find a bridge”, so at some point I adapted my plans to any place that would suit. Just… let’s get it over with, shall we, it only takes one afternoon to hop on some public transport, get on location and shoot, goddamnit.
But no, of course not.

Anyway, some things happened that made me realise I need a big change in perspective. Yes, it’s cool for photos to double as big tokens of affections for my friends, but at some point I have to start prioritising my artistic expression. So now I just jumped at the first occasion to take this photo with a very beautiful friend who was in town and was actually enthusiastic about it all – imagine that. I can’t keep waiting forever.
Said friend, Jelena, I met through Giulia, who had already assisted me with I’m A Ruin and woken me up early in the morning to shoot Frozen last month. She’s my photographic guardian angel. So Jelena was in town, we discussed styling, agreed on a place and time, met up and took the photo. Easy peasy, really. I set up the tripod and framing, Giulia groomed Jelena, assisted me again by adjusting our pose (and making sure the passers by wouldn’t knock off the tripod and camera into the canal), and there it is, at long last, Wonderful Life.
And I’m truly grateful to both of them, because they hadn’t seen each other in a long time and could have just spent the afternoon on their own being the adorable best friends they are, yet chose to meet with me and take photos instead. Not that we didn’t have fun, what with Giulia’s theory that if I jumped from there I wouldn’t die, but surely would mutate and grow a few additional limbs.
See, it can be fun. All we have to do is will it and get it done.

Shade aside, the photo came out more dynamic than I could have hoped for. This is the moment when the male character is about to jump and Susie stops him, gives him some unexpected comfort and changes his mind. Putting one foot on the railing was a last-minute decision that drove it home, and Jelena totally nailed her pose too. I wanted the picture to look like it was shot on a gloomy, cloudy day, so I chose an hour when the sun was up but already behind the surrounding buildings to have neutral light, and did some trick with the hint of the sky to make it look darker, but there’s still a glimpse of light on us that gives more contrast, which I love.
I was scared that, after marinating for so long in my mind, the final photo wouldn’t live up to my expectations, but it’s the precise image I pictured, even better.
And I really should thank all of you who believe in me. After all this time, this photo really means to me what the songs says, and I want to say it to you too: never give up, it’s such a wonderful life.

Frozen

“Cold and risen from the grave,
Hidden years will tell no tales.
Now you seek what only heart can see,
Frozen in so many ways.

Drifting through the light inside,
A lucent image in the dark.
Fickle and dismayed,
Someone cast a shadow
Blurring all the pictures on the pages.

Hide the pieces, I become the sun,
Shining through what became of you.
Early morning, no time to lose,
Chills my heart and I come undone.

Quiet timeless silhouette,
Forgotten fragments of my dreams.
Pleasure and disgust,
Flashbacks out of phase,
Shining golden figure in the background.

Hide the pieces, I become the sun,
Shining through what became of you.
Early morning, no time to lose,
Chills my heart and I come undone.”

[ Frozen – Theatre of Tragedy ]

So, back in the day (like, 2013), I envisioned a sort of trilogy made of this image, Hollow and Illusions, each inspired by their eponymous song from Theatre of Tragedy’s final album, Forever Is The World. Even after years I haven’t figured out why I feel this songs are connected, but bear with me.

While I did Hollow pretty much straightaway, and Illusions had to wait one more year because it gave me a harder time figuring it out, Frozen took me six good years to take. The visual concept was perhaps the easiest to do, as the lyrics provide a plethora of distinct imagery to work with, but I was entirely dependent on weather to take the actual photo. I needed snow because it’s kind of in the title, I needed a monumental cemetery because it’s in the lyrics, the rest follows the lead of the other two photos with a mixing of portraiture and non-portraiture assembled on a hypothetical fashion magazine page.

As you can imagine, snow was the hardest part to work out, to the point it had become something of a running joke: either the winter was particularly warm and I wouldn’t get any at all, or it did snow in Trieste, but only while I was away in Sardinia for whatever reason. Damn, last year we got rain, strong wind, freezing cold, but no snow, until it snowed in freaking March, just the day after I flew to Sardinia to vote on the elections. How is that even possible?

Of course, trying to go and shoot somewhere else with more reliable snowfalls would have been tricky, because I would need to leave on a very short notice, go somewhere reasonably close to still have light to shoot (going farther would require staying the night at some friends’ with no guarantee to still find snow the next day) and, once there, get from the train station to wherever the closest cemetery was on an unknown transport system without even the guarantee that it’d work at all in adverse weather conditions. Also, I’d only have a vague idea of what I’d find at the cemetery, if it would lend itself to photographs, and so on. Basically, all the logistics behind this photo were a nightmare on so many levels, and part of the reason why I didn’t just give up is my friend Katia, who kept me believing that Frozen would happen, eventually.

Finally, this year I got lucky and it snowed the very night of my arrival from Sardinia to Trieste. I had half-given up by the time I went to bed because we were having the faintest snowfall and it looked like it wouldn’t stick, but the next morning my friend Giulia kept ringing me on the phone until I woke up and looked out of the window and I saw it: the snow had stuck! Truth be told, if she hadn’t kept ringing, I would have slept until all the snow had melted and I would have regretted missing this one occasion forever. So I got up, shaved, packed up, hopped on the first bus and there I was, heading for the snow-covered monumental cemetery complex of Trieste.

After some bad luck in the first one I tried (the caretaker caught me immediately and told me I could not take any photos there), I went to the biggest one, got as far away from any personnel as I could, took the snowscape photos, then set up the tripod and voila, Frozen was there! I can’t freaking believe it!

Naturally I had further trouble at home when my external hard drive died on me, but not before I recovered the watercolour title I’d prepared ages ago, so at least I had that silver lining. And at long last, the trilogy is complete!

Of course, I dedicate this to both Katia and Giulia, for believing in me and actively helping me complete the work. I believe true friendship is understanding just how much something means to your loved ones, and going out of your way to help them out!

The Infernal Lords XXIX: Belial

“I’ve been trying to participate in masquerades:
The throne’s been empty for too long.
Paradise for those who play along
And the fortunate ones.

I’ve been begging for the public eye, now watch me fly:
Can you see what I’ve become?”
[ Fate – Tristania ]

Duke Belial is one of the best known and politically prominent figures of Hell. Ironically enough, he was the Chief of Virtues while in Heaven, but has since become one of the most infamous Demons of all time, his deeds being a legend even in Hell itself. Long before the Great Heavenly War began, he openly defied Yahweh’s laws and orchestrated many schemes with his Second-in-Command, Princess Lilith, recruiting Angels to Emperor Lucifer’s cause and even acting as a decoy – convincingly pretending he was the one organising the sedition so that the Supreme Angel could work undisturbed. After his Fall he styled himself the Lord of Deceit and has now turned into one of the Seven Satans of the First-Level as the Demon of Pride. He’s the best liar the world has ever known, even greater than Countess Jezebeth herself, who’s part of his retinue.
Due to the Sin he embodies, he’s a great connoisseur of Yahweh and his ways, and has proved his value with countless acts, ranging from petty to grand, to peeve his rather quick temper, most often using mankind while remaining in the shadows himself. To name a few, he plotted together with Queen Barbelo and Marquis Leviathan to create the Tree of Knowledge drama in Eden, taught mankind the pleasures of fineries and embellishment, suggested that they build the Tower of Babel, caused the Midianites idolatry incident, inspired the crafting of the Golden Calf with gold he stole from Count Mammon’s own reservoir, inspired countless other cases of idolatry throughout history and planned hundreds of other ploys. But his true masterpiece was the Sodom and Gomorrah conspiracy, which he made up all by himself: he deceived the inhabitants of the two cities into abandoning any kind of morals to test the depth Yaweh’s creation could reach, watching them indulge in such depravity that even Pandemonium itself had never seen, and staining the Earth so deeply and beyond redemption that his name became a legend and no creature in Heaven or Hell is said not to know it. He receives countless (and mostly incorrect) mentions in mankind’s texts, which often identify him as “the” Satan.
Belial is the most elegant and sophisticated Demon of the Court, regarded as the Arbiter Elegantiarum of Pandemonium. This makes him a rival of Marquis Adramelech, whom Duke Belial enjoys teasing and ridiculing whenever he gets the occasion, especially in public or in front of Emperor Lucifer; the two even struggled for the position as the Satan of Pride, but Duke Belial easily overcame his rival. He also secured a position as an Astral Demon, mastering the astrological influence of Jupiter.
Many courters turn to him for matters of etiquette, and he’s always the one to write important speeches for others and lead the most sophisticated celebrations. The Demons of Arts work under his close direction and he takes a particular liking to Count Kobal due to their sharing of a quick wit and sharp tongue. Among others, he greatly enjoys the company of Princess Lilith and her sister, Marquise Naamah, as well as that of the debauched Marquis Rosiel. Marquise Decarabia is also part of his retinue, as she often turns to him for advice about floral decoration at Court, and he’s one of the few secret-keepers of Duke Xaphan’s affair with Queen Barbelo. He’s a good comrades with Count Asmodeus, whom he often works with on Earth, but his best friend is definitely Duke Astaroth, mainly due to the latter’s indolent love of vain things as a mean of wasting time and their shared interest in the most material pleasures of life.

Belial: development and symbolysm

Credits:

Photo, concept, manipulation, frame design: GothicNarcissus Photography
Model, hair, make up: Antonio Grimaldi
Styling: GothicNarcissus Photography and Antonio Grimaldi
Additional resources: Meltys-Stock (wings), Myruso (wallpaper)

While he was among the first Demons I decided to include in the project, there’s a special reason why I left Belial as the last Infernal Lord in the series except for Lucifer: he’s one of my favourite Demons.
Okay, not exactly: the real reason is it had as troubled a history as Rosiel’s, much to my dismay. But one of my favourites he is indeed and, at long last, here he comes.

Belial from Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary.

Like many of the most prominent Demons, I came across Belial – you guess it – from Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary. One of the most intriguing and best written characters in the manga, Belial kicked ass, jump-started some of my favourite plotlines, completely blurred gender binarism and provided some of the best lines in the manga. Of course, when I started planning a series about Demons, he was one of my top-priority researches.
Contrary to most Demons, there’s so much information about Belial that I didn’t even know where to begin when building his character. According to the most accepted etymology, the name means “worthless” and is a term which occurs a few times in the Old Testament. It’s not related to a specific entity, though, but only used to denote sinful people in the idiomatic phrase “sons of belial”.
The first instance of Belial as a being comes from the later Dead Sea Scrolls, which depict him as an “angel of darkness”, often citing him as the Prince of Darkness himself. Other texts, such as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs or the Ascension of Isaiah also identify Belial as Satan, or generally as a messenger of darkness who’s opposed to Yahweh.
The New Testament mostly omits the term altogether, and Belial is only named by Paul of Tarsus as an enemy of Jesus; in the apocryphal Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew, he’s one of the Angels cast out of Heaven. The concept of Belial as a being rather than a concept was thus solidified, but it’s not until the later esoteric grimoires that he starts to be fully sketched out as a Demon of his own.

Belial summoned with his lieutenant by King Solomon, author unknown.

Sebastian Michaelis calls him Belias, identifies him as the former Prince of Virtues and links him to arrogance, vanity and wantonness. While conspicuously absent from Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal, he appears in both the Lesser Key Of Solomon and the Book of Abramelin as a particularly high-ranking figure, and one of the few to retain an angelic form when summoned.
So, having to cherrypick from all this information, I first wrote down what would fit my own canon (fallen Angel, former Virtue, Demon of Pride) and then decided to work his being identified as “the” Devil by having him being so infamous that mankind incorrectly calls him that. I also decided to make him the grey eminence behind the most infamous cases of pride and idolatry from the Bible, and shot out to Kaori Yuki’s character linking him to the Sodom and Gomorrah incident.

Belial from Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary.

You might notice that, overall, the final photo has more of an old-school, goth vibe compared to the later works in the series: that’s because I came up with the general idea basically on day one of the project, back in 2009, when I was rocking guyliner and leather cuffs in my everyday life. Coming up with the visuals for the Demon of Pride and Vanity was rather easy; like Astaroth, Kaori Yuki’s version of the character was strongly influential, especially the very fitting illustration above. I immediately opted for butterfly wings rather than feathered ones because butterflies often symbolise vanity, and because that would immediately make Belial stand out from the other Demons (I hadn’t come up with Xaphan and Decarabia yet, so lepidoptera-winged Belial was unique back then). I also wanted him to be fancily dressed in black to emphasise the Sin he represents and I was adamant that he’d have a large-brimmed hat both as a direct shot out to Belial’s Mad Hatter persona in Angel Sanctuary and because it would make a sort of visual black halo around his head, underlining his very prestigious rank.
I’m not sure how much make up my original idea  had, but I think at some point I considered something quite heavy, but not quite as clownesque as Kaori Yuki’s; anyway, that’s one of the parts that got toned down the most once I started drifting away from strict gothic fashion, as having a black-clad figure on a purple background with heavy eye make up would be beyond cliché nowadays. One thing that was clear from day one was the theme colour, purple, which is widely associated with pride and vanity, as well as royalty. Being in the Lesser Key of Solomon, Belial already ha his own seal, so I didn’t have to come up with one of my own.
With all the basics in place, the background half-ready and a quick characterisation to eventually expand upon, all I had to do was cast the role and shoot it… which is where things got spectacularly derailed.

I’ve mentioned that Belial’s history was very similar to Rosiel’s in that, without going into too much detail, I initially cast one of my best friends due to our shared love for Kaori Yuki’s character, some inside jokes that doubled as shot outs, and so on. For the first few years, we had some geographic difficulties that prevented us from shooting (which is hilarious in hindsight, considering I ended up shooting it in Naples anyway), but I didn’t really mind because I was shooting Demons left, right and centre so Belial could wait, even if it was one of my favourites; then my friend moved closer, but things kept coming up from both sides and we never really got down to organising the shoot. By 2016, seven years into the project, there were only Rosiel, Belial and the still uncast Lucifer to go, and it was high time to do something about that. While I was recasting Rosiel out of sheer frustration, I decided to face the fact that I stopped pushing the matter with Belial because I’d had second thoughts for a while. So I took a deep breath, talked to my friend, bailed out and recast the role altogether.

Belial draft from early 2016.

By that time, I had long since realised that my friend Antonio Grimaldi was physically the closest a person could get to my idea of Belial. I’d been following his work for a while on social media and he was very pretty, always stylish and had that intensity I wanted my character to have. Once I had settled the matter with my other friend, Antonio and I had some preliminary talks (I did the sketch above to show him my basic idea), he agreed to take part in the project and we started organising the actual shoot. The idea was to meet more or less midway in Rome, and we scheduled a shoot in November 2016, when I had to go there for an unrelated event. The meeting fell through almost last minute due to things coming up from the both of us and then… well, then 2017 happened.
Long story short, 2017 wasn’t my best year in the mental health department. There were a lot of things at play then: on the one hand, I had had so many setbacks for the whole span of the Infernal Lords project that I was half-willing to give it up altogether. Then, to shoot Belial specifically I had to ask my friend Ginevra for hospitality in Rome and I really felt uncomfortable in forcing my presence on someone; and I had to find a weekend when both she and Antonio were available. Also, I was intimidated by Antonio: I mean, just look at him – he’s modelling agency material, who the hell did I think I was to ask him to model for me? And I had grown a bit uncomfortable in sharing my ideas on such a controversial theme with “normies” out there, lest they thought I was the mess I actually am – read, I had become so insicure that I was doubting my vision. So I just projected my insecurities into thinking Antonio had somehow changed his mind and didn’t know how to tell me, or something like that, when there was no indication of that aside from both of us not being great at keeping in touch on the internet.
It took me one more year and a half, lots of reassurance from Ginevra that I wasn’t an unwanted guest, a session with my therapist and a couple of tarot readings to finally get me to pick a weekend, write to everybody and organise the set. And given my luck with the rest of the project, I was a total train wreck for the two weeks leading up to the trip because I was expecting anything to go wrong and dreading to get yet another disappointment. I literally refused to get my hopes up until the moment I was in Naples with Antonio.

Turns out my worries were totally pointless, of course: first because Antonio is, like, the sweetest cinnamon roll ever and a very lovely person to talk and hang around with; second because, as soon as I reminded him of what wacky project I was going to have him pose for, he almost got more enthusiastic than me.
Contrary to my usual method, we warmed up with a few random shots before we came down to Belial and the best thing about Antonio is just how ridiculously photogenic he is: I’m not kidding, he’s Vogue Hommes material. He’s able to look effortlessly intense, striking a dramatic pose with a brooding expression and still looking like he’s not even trying, like he’s always like that and I just caught him thinking of something else. By the time we got to shooting the Demon, I was so impressed by his work that I just gave him free rein with the pose, other than the hand gesture, and the result is exactly what Belial should look like: vaguely mysterious, effortlessly sophisticated, naturally elegant, the testimonial for the Antichrist Couture on Vogue Pandemonium.
I’m not kidding or overstating: the moment I saw that photo in my camera LCD, suddenly it was all worth it. All the wait and the year-and-a-half postponement and the worries and doubts, and the stress I made up and inflicted upon myself in the few weeks leading up to it. That’s the way I always wanted Belial to look, straight out of my head.

And so, here we are. I have changed the theme song for this work a bagillion times until I settled on Fate by Tristania because it fits pretty well the character. That said, the work is out and the Demon of Pride might be one of the ones I’m the proudest of. It’s the beginning of the end of the Infernal Lords and I’m glad it’s on such a high note. I’ll do my best to top that with Lucifer, when I’ll finally get down to him as well.

Big Boys, They Need To Cry (Wings)

“You’ve been suffering,
Hiding your pain.
Unshed tears on the edge,
“Just water under the bridge”, you say.

Is it too late
To make myself a safe place?
I could not see
The dangers, the sacrifices
You were making.

Hurt you, hurt me,
Hurt you. Never meant to
Hurt you, hurt me.
I need to make myself a safe place
For you to cry, baby,
‘Cause sometimes
Big boys, they need to cry.

So we built you some wings
To help you to flee
From your demanding
Dark angel and me.

Is it too late
To make myself a safe place?
I went too far
When we flew too close
To our star.

It hurt you, hurt me,
Hurt you. Never meant to
Hurt you, hurt me.
I need to make myself a safe place
For you to cry, baby,
To cry, baby,
‘Cause sometimes
Big boys, they need to cry.
‘Cause sometimes
Big boys, they need to cry.”

[ Wings – Tori Amos ]

I feel like I should spend a few words on this photo, if only for how much work it took me and what satisfaction it brought me in the end.

So, Tori Amos’ latest album, Native Invader, flooded my mind with images, one of which is this one. I didn’t really sit down and think like I often do, I just visualised something and decided to go for it. This is why I didn’t really consider the whole metaphor in the lyrics when I came up with this image: what really got me about this song is the part about big boys needing to cry, i.e. get in touch with their emotions and fragility, which I find a very important message nowadays. Also, I liked the idea of trying to become someone’s safe place even if there’s been some disagreement and mutual hurting: it’s never too late to turn around and mend a relationship.
This is pretty much what inspired me: the eponymous wings are not attached to the protagonist so he can fly away as in the lyrics, but to the narrator, laid down as a shelter of sort so the protagonist can let himself feel fragile. It was a compelling image but I really didn’t know how to pull it off: nine years of Infernal Lords have taught me how difficult it is to find realistic wings for shooting, unless I turn to full-blown digital art.

And that’s pretty much what I did: instead of having actual wings, in real life or added digitally, I decided to draw them as if I were drawing on a photo with markers.
I came up with this idea while listening to another couple of songs: first came Bang and then Climb. I envisioned both as photograph-drawing hybrids, and then I felt like Reindeer King and Wildwood could work in a similar style, too. So why not Wings? So next thing I knew, I had a little series of visually homogenous works ready to be done.

I’ll be honest: this was a very difficult image to pull off. Not the photo per se which, once I did some location scouting, was one of the smoothest self-portraits I ever took, but the post-production was massive. I honestly didn’t even know if I was skilled enough to do it, as drawing is not my strongest suit. It took me three solid evening of work and I’m sure that someone with more practice with a graphic tablet would have done it in half the time and a tenth of the effort, but having drawn something that actually looks good, blends with the photo and is exactly what I envisioned is a massive self-confidence fix. Perhaps I really am capable of doing more than I think and am just too scared to try out!

Now, before this turns into the billionth unfinished long-term project, I’m not really making big plans about it. I’m not even going to do the whole album as some songs I really don’t like, or they just don’t speak to me. I’m just taking it as it is and doing what I can when I can.
On a side note about the title: Wings is going to be a work in my Inspiration Hurts series, so I decided to keep that as a subtitle while using the line that caught my attention as the main one. This is also going to happen if I decide to take the other photos I have in mind.

Pi

“Temporary like a prism,
Being involved and being ignored.
But your broken glass charisma
Is my one and only source.

Circularly, you remember
Maybe you or me or both.
Sorry you, sorry me,
Proudly fail, resume indoors.

Distance closes our throat.
Be so sweet can’t replace.
Miles unconnectable,
Time is improvable.
Contradictions you say,
We’re so ignorable,
So your static, empty words
Just wish a syllable.

Our bodies are paralysing us,
Selling our souls otherwise.
Feed crippled mind and fertilise,
Selling our souls otherwise.
Our bodies are paralysing us,
Selling our souls otherwise.
Feed crippled mind and fertilise,
Selling our souls otherwise.

Free our horses, my pretender,
Don’t you let them go astray.
Colours flash, the only minded.
Colours… fade.

Distance closes our throat.
Be so sweet can’t replace.
Miles unconnectable,
Time is improvable.
Contradictions you say,
We’re so ignorable,
So your static, empty words
Just wish a syllable.

Our bodies are paralysing us,
Selling our souls otherwise.
Feed crippled mind and fertilise,
Selling our souls otherwise.

Step into pain circles,
Enter the whispering.
Wash out your construction,
Fragments of rain.

Our bodies are paralysing us,
Selling our souls otherwise.
Feed crippled mind and fertilise,
Selling our souls otherwise.”

[ Pi – Leandra ]

Pi has always been a tricky one in my Morphine project: while I absolutely love this song, the lyrics are quite abstract and all over the place with their imagery. I could pinpoint the general theme – working out a difficult romantic relationship – but it didn’t give me much to work with visually.
The music, on the other hand, has always evoked me a dynamic image of a couple somewhere in-between a dance and a fight: something coreographic that could encompass both a feeling of separation and an attempt at reconciliation.
With so little in mind, I sort of shelved the song to the back of the project to focus on more approachable concepts… until this happened.

Basically, when I had my nice shoot with Knajfer Wintermere and his handsome real-life boyfriend Riccardo, I mostly allowed them the freedom to just act naturally in front of the camera and be the beautiful couple they are. At some point I attempted to set up another Morphine photo which didn’t really work out, got frustrated over that and just let them fool around a little on their own. When I focussed back, there they were: Riccardo is a very atletic boy and was doing splits for the fun of it with Knajfer. There was just something about the intensity of their gaze that hit me in the face with all the power of the piano riff in the second half of the song, and I instantly knew this was what I wanted Pi to look like in my project. There, out of the music itself.
The prism / icosahedron was a last-minute postproduction idea I had to give a further link to the song lyrics and because sketches surreally overimposed on the photos are a recurring theme of sort in the project.

And so, that’s it: Knajfer and Riccardo basically pulled me over a potentially huge hitch in my project just by being an adorable couple. Which is precisely the reason why I’m saving so many photos for people who truly have feelings for each other: some things you cannot act, they have to come from the heart.

Surrender

“Surrender, surrender, oh.
Surrender, surrender, oh.
Surrender, surrender, oh.
Surrender, surrender, oh.
Give me that sweet
Surrender, surrender, oh.
Give me that sweet
Surrender, surrender, oh.
Give me that sweet
Surrender, surrender, oh.
Give me that sweet
Surrender, surrender, oh.
Give me that sweet
Surrender, surrender, oh.
I’ll be released, I’ll be released, oh!”

[ Surrender – Hurts ]

Speaking of Hurts songs that are difficult to nail, Surrender (the title track of the third album) doesn’t give much to work with: it’s a one-minute-and-eighteen-second intro with basically three sentences in the lyrics – and they’re quite vague, too. But musically it’s a powerful song despite its simplified structure: the gospel-like choir is incredibly energetic and makes it quite emotional – even epic. I always thought of a picture with very dramatic light and a welcoming mood of sort as, despite the title, the lyrics are quite optimistic. And that’s pretty much what I got by having Knajfer and Riccardo posing in front of the setting sun.
I thought this scene could fit the idea I had, but again, it’s their expressions – something out of my control – that really give the photo its impact. I know it’s sort of weird of me to just go with the flow when shooting, especially when it comes to my long-term projects, but it’s a really nice way to keep the creativity flowing and ready for the more structured, difficult photos in the series.