Glorious

“Glorious!

There’s a place I go,
A place I always stand alone
And need no witness to my throne.
Here I say my piece
And have no need to be believed:
The bridge I build will carry me
Beyond the creatures of your sea.

Glorious, pure-insular,
The very first to draw the air
And touch the earth, I built it there.
Oh glorious, glorious, ooh!

Here I win my day,
I make my kill upon the grave
And need no hero to be saved.
Here the light still shines
Despite the odds and all the time,
Despite the Gods and their design.

Glorious, pure-insular,
The very first to draw the air
And touch the earth, I built it there.
Oh glorious, glorious, ooh!
Glorious, pure-insular,
The very first to draw the air
And touch the earth, I built it there.
Oh glorious, glorious, ooh!”

[ Glorious – Phildel ]

Glorious was probably the first concept from the Wave Your Flags series I came up with, before even thinking of making an entire series (though I had the feeling Luisa would agree to one). The first few seconds of the song are already so powerful and evocative that I had the full-blown image in my head (minus a couple of details), just waiting to be taken.

It also probably helped that the breathtaking aesthetics of Aurora Consurgens by my dear friend ContessaNera were ingrained in my memories, only for the song to bring them up again and influence my own photo. Beside Veronica’s work, I also drew inspiration from the Phidias’ Athena Parthenos, a (now lost) sculpture of triumphant goddess Athena holding Nike, the Winged Victory, in the palm of her hand.

And thus, the idea of Luisa holding the statuette of an eagle with its wings spread, looking triumphant against a strong light source, was born.

The styling was easy too: once we started talking about the project more concretely, I chose this dress for its metallic sequins, which would provide texture and highlights to the backlit silhouette of the dark fabric. In that regard, the sheer fabric also allowed for the breeze to give volume to the skirt and floaty sleeves, which added movement to the otherwise solemn photo.

On a side note, this photo was once again taken atop the Electric Heights stairway, the same place where I shot the Wandering Stars photos. As my light equipment is in Trieste, I had to make do with natural light, and in the afternoon that place gives a beautiful, mostly unobstructed view of the sun setting towards the sea, so the background turns out perfectly white with the sun providing the necessary back-light.

Once the photo was done, I asked Veronica for advice on how to best include sun rays in postproduction to give it that “glorious” feel.

On a total side note, the eagle statuette we used was a career accolade my maternal grandfather had earned, which was passed down to my mother. I’m glad I could include a piece of my family history into one of my works.

And this wraps up the Wave Your Flags series. I am very satisfied with this project, both for the actual photos themselves, the final works, turned out, and also how we worked while making them. We were well-organised, our schedule was tight but took full advantage of the locations so that we wouldn’t have to take too many (or too long) trips in-between shoots, and we managed to work around or push through some unexpected circumstances that came up along the way, all the while also throwing in a few photos for different projects while we were at that.

Thank you all so much for the warm reception you’ve given this project. A huge thanks to Phildel, who has kindly shared some of our photos and was super supportive of our efforts to turn her music into image. It’s always amazingly rewarding when the artists who inspire my photos find something of their work reflected back from mine.