Inspiration Hurts: project presentation

My journey through Hurts music begun with my camera. One evening, a dear friend of mine and I were organizing a photoshoot, and, in the middle of the brainstorming, she sent me the link to Evelyn, asking me what I thought about it and if we could develop her idea of a photo inspired by the song.
Not only it did our minds connect perfectly giving us both the very same image to work on while we were listening, but it touched me so deeply I immediately googled Hurts’ discography. The next step was purchasing Happiness, hitting play and being totally blown away by Silver Lining.

Music is a huge part of my life. Ever since I had a camera and started using it to take artistic photographs, songs became my greatest source of inspiration and most of the photos I have taken in the past five years are my own visual rendition of melodies or lyrics. This happens because through my photography I try to express my inner world; some special pieces of music have a particular resonance with it and I find the reflection of my own thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears, pleasures and pains in them, which echo back to me evoking particular images in my mind. This is how most of my photos are born, either while I’m listening to music, or while I’m shooting and see something that reminds me of that particular song.

One of the things I love the most about your music is the intensity of the connection I feel with them and the vividness of the images I receive back. Silver Lining, the work that opens this book, was already sketched by the end of the first chorus and crystal clear by the last, breath-taking “silver” of the final choir ever since the first time I listened to the song, the exact way you can see it on the paper. Same goes with many other works on this  book, even though they disclosed their images later on or invaded my mind while I was already at work.
Another thing worth mentioning is that I’ve been mainly shooting for the past two years and fell back in love with modelling mostly thanks to these photos. When I conceive the images, I immediately notice that most of the ideas for Hurts-inspired photos feature myself as the subject, despite my general lack of will to crawl in front of the lens. I think it’s because I share my feelings with your song so strongly and deeply that I can’t help but being part of the image myself, it’s almost automatic.

Not all of your songs have their related photos in this book. Some of them chose to leave their secrets Unspoken, for now, and I don’t want to rush or force them; others have already disclosed them, and the images they showed me Stay in my mind, but haven’t found the right moment to be brought to the light yet; and then, there are also some songs which still wait the right inspiration to bloom, be recorded and provide me with fresh inspiration in turn, someday.

As the creative process means a lot to me and I especially cherish every source of inspiration – making art is truly cathartic to me, and the worst periods come when I’m out of ideas – I felt I had to show my gratitude to you, who make the music that inspires me the most in this period. I thought the best way to pay you homage was to print the photos and hand you the book. I hope that by looking at them you may have a glimpse of the feelings your songs give me and how good I feel when I can put them into a new work. Truth be told, it feels Better Than Love.

From the preface of Inspiration Hurts (But it feels Better Than Love).

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.