Weight Of The World

“I’ve got trouble on my mind.
I see the cracks in the open sky.
I feel the lightning illuminate the pain inside.
I don’t know what I will find deep inside.

I feel the weight of the world
Weighing on my mind.
I can’t carry the Earth,
I’m not strong enough.

I’ve got trouble on my mind,
I’ve got trouble on my…

With every joy that you display
A little piece of me just fades away.
And all around me, the fallen angels hit the ground
And I can’t catch them as they’re raining down.

I feel the weight of the world
Weighing on my mind,
I can’t carry the Earth,
I’m not strong enough.

I’ve got trouble on my mind,
I’ve got trouble on my mind.

Set me free, shed this off with me,
Don’t let me down, don’t let me go,
Don’t let me bare this weight alone.
Don’t let me down, don’t let me go.

I feel the weight of the world
Weighing on my mind.
I can’t carry the Earth,
I’m not strong enough.

Don’t let me down, don’t let me go,
I’ve got trouble on my mind.”

[ Weight Of The World – Hurts ]

Fun fact: the embryo of this photo was conceived the moment I saw the tracklist for Hurts’ new album, Surrender, months before I could even listen to the song itself. Weight Of The World called for my atlas Zara t-shirt and that was a fact that wasn’t gonna change, no matter what, because one thing into which I put a particular care in my Inspiration Hurts project is styling.
Once the album came out and I listened to the song, I was a bit conflicted about how to actually render it while also showing the t-shirt: at some point, I considered a cradled pose of sort to render the idea of an inner, emotional kind of burden, but that would have covered most of the details. Then, last week I took some quick self-portraits for a friend who needed a reference to draw a sculpture: trying to look like a statue holding up a portal made me think, let’s just do Atlas and keep things simple. The imagery is easily recognisable and the pose would just work perfectly with the original, fashion-oriented idea. I also came across that wooden globe last week, so my Atlas-inspired idea would work out perfectly. As a further reference to the lyrics, I thought of the falling angels as shooting stars, which was a good way to fill the background without distracting too much attention from the main subject.
Contrary to how long it usually takes me to take self-portraits, I got this one done pretty quickly. I don’t know: yesterday I just woke up, I felt pretty and I thought, let’s shoot the photo. So here we go, Inspiration Hurts is still going strong.

Swimming

“I was swimming across the sky,
Clouds and angels by my side,
Then I realised that I was lonely
And it wasn’t such a good thing.

I was flying in paradise,
In that ocean of dead lights.
I was looking for your smile in the wind,
But there was nobody there this morning.

I believe in your smile everyday,
But I know that you’re far from my way.
When I talk to the moon I can hear you:
In the dark I can see, I can feel your light.”

[ Swimming – Emilie Simon ]

I remember distinctly I started listening to Emilie Simon right after moving out of the student dorm into a real flat, which was five years ago around this period. One of her songs that caught my attention first was Swimming, which is still one of my favourites today. It evoked the image you can see almost immediately when I heard it, so I can say I’ve been gestating this photo for exactly five years. Just like that, the very way you see it. A friend of mine, to whom I showed the photo earlier, asked me why it took me so long to do it, then. Well, I’ll be damned if I know.
The idea per se is quite simple: floating in a very still pond which reflects the sky and clouds to convey being swimming across the sky, with no shore in sight to give the idea of vastness and solitude. Fairly immediate. Why five years, then?
Well, I guess back then I was aware I wasn’t nearly artistically mature enough to pull out the photo as good as I needed it to be, especially the reflection. It took me some observation to learn how the light reflects or scatters in the water and which conditions are best for what I needed: grazing light or even shadows, shallow water with as little ripples as possible, a very low point of view so the water is more reflective than transparent to the lens and, of course, the right amount of clouds. In the meantime, I upgraded my equipment to include a full frame camera and a telephoto lens, which would give a great technical help to the photo. Now the problem was the right place and time: of course I needed the clouds, but it had to be in summer so I would not freeze to death. As for bodies of water with a clear view of the sky and shallow enough to make a good reflection, well, I had no idea where to look: I either kept coming across forest ponds, which reflected the green of the foliage instead of the sky, or places where the water was constantly moving and rippling, which didn’t reflect enough. At some point this year I even considered some lakes near Trieste, but I could not arrange to get transportation and assistance there, so I shelved the idea for some time.
As my dear friend ContessaNera put it, you go all “I need a location that doesn’t even exist in the computers of the Noah graphics”, then you find it in your own basement. In this case, while shooting a month or so ago, I found out that the coastline near Alghero hid some really nice tide pools which were shallow and enclosed enough to reflect the sky perfectly under the right conditions. All I had to do was wait for the right amount of clouds and go for it, except, as I noted while discussing Noisy Awareness, is easier said than done in such a sunny place as Alghero.
Well, yesterday was a very rainy day until it cleared late in the afternoon. As soon as I saw there were some leftover clouds, I grabbed my camera, my tripod, my mom and rushed to the nearest pool to set everything up. With some precious help from my mom, the shoot went smoothly and there it was, the photo I’ve been dreaming of for all these years.
In these five years, this song has become incredibly meaningful to me and so has the photo. I can say I’m exactly in this situation right now, floating on my own among unrealistic things with a strong sense of yearning, which helped me add a layer of depth to the image. I can say this photo has come in the due time, as my photos always do.

Noisy Awareness

“Your unconscious, scarred, little space
In time’s old horizons.
Unlocking swooning voracity,
You raise obsession in between.
Sometimes you wither enchantment
In intimate gardens.
Each step of reserved delusion
Fertilises your fantasy.

You may enslave,
You may disgrace,
My will your fury may obtain.

In a rainy summer night
You’re making me nervous.
Through tomorrow, through my fights
You’re making me nervous.
In a wedding summer night
You’re taking the summer.
In a wedding summer night
You take me.

So wake up and forget the self
And you will fear nothing.
Cut anything out of your life
And you will fear nothing.
Be aware of risky transactions
And you will fear nothing.
So chase for abduction of duty
And you will fear nothing.
 
You may enslave,
You may disgrace,
My will your fury may obtain.

In a rainy summer night
You’re making me nervous.
Through tomorrow, through my fights
You’re making me nervous.
In a wedding summer night
You’re taking the summer.
In a wedding summer night
You take me.”

[ Noisy Awareness – Leandra ]

The downside of battling depression (which I’m currently at open war with) is a drastic reduction in artistic productivity, which has been particularly noticeable in the past months. The silver lining is it gives you that kind of haunted look which makes photos like this one stand out. So, at long last, here’s a new work from my Morphine series, specifically the Metamorphine half.
Noisy Awareness was the first song by Leandra I ever listened to back in 2008, and which made me fall in love with her music. While it already gave me a couple of bursts of inspiration even then, in time I came up with the mental image you can see above, closer to the story behind the song which Leandra wrote about a stalker. I’m pretty sure I already had this idea before 2013, when I decided to make a series out of Leandra’s two albums, so I included it directly into the poject, waiting for the right time to put it into action. The greatest difficulty, which delayed the photo until today, was the location I chose: I wanted the photo to be somewhat claustrophobic, so I decided the perfect place would be one of the alleys in the old town of Alghero. Heh, good luck finding a rainy summer afternoon to shoot it. Cloudy or rainy days, which would provide the diffuse light, are hard to come by in Sardinia during summer time, the only option not to get pneumonia while shooting outdoors all wet. I also didn’t really have any suitable male friends left here to play the stalker which, while blurry in the background, was a pivotal part of the photo. Well, today it finally rained (cats and dogs, I would say) and I had a co-model to work with, Davide of Atelier Davis, with whom I’d already shot earlier this summer. After a brief delay due to an unexpectedly sunny morning, the afternoon finally provided the right weather, so I set up the tripod and shot the photo.
Beside the obviously literal depiction of the lyrics, I’ve put some effort in the symbolism of this photo: firstly, the stalker is only a blurry shadow in the background to increase the feel of unease. Secondly, the main character in the photo is soaked in the rain while the stalker is safe under the umbrella to put the stalker in a less exposed place and convey a sense of vulnerability for the victim.
While I have no idea when I’ll be able to work some more on this project, I’ll leave you with the wonderful sketch I did yesterday night to show Davide what my idea was. Feel free to roll on the floor laughing your butts off!

Mary Jane Holland

“Lady of the ‘dam
Won’t be a slave to the blonde
Or the culture of the popular.
She won’t, she won’t.
Sing at you, I’ll
Fly under radar tonight,
Make deals with every devil in sight.
I will, I will.

‘Cause I love-love, ‘cause I love-love
You better than, you better than
My darkest sin:
Russian hookers and cheap gin.

I think that I could be fine
If I could be Mary Jane Holland tonight.
I think we’d have a good time
If you’d meet me, Mary Jane, in Holland tonight.

Mary Jane Holland,
Whoo-hoo!
(Puff in, puff out!)
Oh, Mary, oh-uh, Jane, ah, Holland,
Whoo-hoo!

I don’t like to boast
But our truffles are the most
Mad magical in Amsterdam.
She won’t, she won’t.
So if you have fear,
Apollo, sit on my lyre and
Play ‘em like a piano, man.
I will, I will.

‘Cause I love-love, ‘cause I love-love
You better than, you better than
My darkest sin:
Russian hookers and cheap gin.

I think that I could be fine
If I could be Mary Jane Holland tonight.
I think we’d have a good time
If you’d meet me, Mary Jane, in Holland tonight.

Mary Jane Holland,
Whoo-hoo!
(Puff in, puff out!)
Oh, Mary, oh-uh, Jane, ah, Holland,
Whoo-hoo!

I know that mom and dad think I’m a mess,
But it’s alright because I am rich as piss.
When I ignite the flame and put you in my mouth
The grass heats up my insides and my brunette starts to sprout.

Introducing, ladies and gentlemen,
Mary Jane Holland!

I think that I could be fine
If I could be Mary Jane Holland tonight.
I think we’d have a good time
If you’d meet me, Mary Jane, in Holland tonight.

Mary Jane Holland,
Whoo-hoo!
(Puff in, puff out!)
Oh, Mary, oh-uh, Jane, ah, Holland,
Whoo-hoo!”

[ Mary Jane Holland – Lady Gaga ]

You know, guys, I don’t do drugs, not even weed. I believe anyone’s free to do them and have an opinion on the matter – I’m not expressing judgement or anything – it’s just not my cup of tea; therefore, I’d rather not to address the matter at all in my art, since it is something I have little to no experience of and am not very interested in knowing better.
So you guess it, the perspective of rendering visually a song about weed for my Artpop Generation project, which I felt compelled to do because it’s my second favourite from the album, posed a serious challenge to me… for about ten minutes or so, I guess.
I actually came up with this concept pretty much as soon as I heard the song the first time: as I don’t do drugs, the best equivalent I could find in my own life was music. I’m basically high on music all the time: I’m seriously addicted to it (to the point of not answering the phone when I’m listening to something I particularly like), I trip while listening, it makes me more social, it can calm my nerves or give me juice for an evening out… We can say that, metaphorically speaking, music is my weed. There we go with the concept: headphones as my own spin on the subject and smoke to keep a connection with Gaga’s original idea.

Truth be told, I could have shot this photo anytime in the past year and a half as all I needed was to set the black background, do my hair, trim my beard and set up the tripod. I didn’t until today at first because I’m lazy and then ‘cause I’ve been experiencing a severe inspirational block in the past few months. I hope this gets me back on track at last.

The Infernal Lords XXVII: Furcifel

“He’s holding for the moment of the fall,
Stolen knowledge by minds unformed.
Regulate the demolition of
Annexe for the differing thoughts.
Discarded sparks left years ago
Evoked a language much more austere.
Reverberating with figments,
He left a trace of translucence.

Can you see the storm getting closer now?
Tell me how it feels being out there.”
[ Storm – Theatre of Tragedy ]

Count Furcifel, known among the Mortals as Furfur, is a former powerful Throne who was part of Duke Astaroth’s closest entourage before the latter’s Fall, but kept serving undercover as Great Angel Zaphkiel’s Second-in-Command after the Great Heavenly War. He was the namesake of his former Choir as the wielder of the Thunder, the instrument of Yahweh’s justice, with which Count Furcifel reminded mankind of God’s authority. He was busted during the turmoil following the Babel Tower incident, arriving in Hell at the same time as Countess Agares. He kept however full control over his Element and became the Demon of Storms and Lightning, a power he is always eager to unleash against the Angels whenever he gets the occasion. While not officially a military himself, his energetic, vibrant personality and great force make him a suitable companion for Marquis Nergal’s patrols at the border of Hell, during which Count Furcifel can vent his powers and escape the frustrating boredom of life at Court. Always eager to create mischief, he flies to Earth quite often to conjure devastating thunderstorms; the Mortals’ sightings of him over the centuries resulted in the stereotypical image of horned and dragon-winged Demons.
As his Element combines those of Duke Astaroth, Queen Barbelo and Marquis Leviathan, he maintains good comradeship with all three, especially the Queen, who in turn appreciates his fierce temper, and the Duke of Terror, whom he can often shake from his apathy for a flight to Eart. He also gets along with the Chief of his Level, Duke Xaphan, who often asks for his help to test his latest inventions. The two of them were the ones who inspired mankind how to exploit the power of Electricity to sustain their technology, accelerating exponentially their progress and their emancipation from Yahweh’s grasp.

Furcifel: development and symbolism

Credits:

Photo, concept, manipulation, frame design, styling, background stock photos: GothicNarcissus
Model, hair: Francisco De Rosa
Additional resources: Amptone-stock (texture), Thy-Darkest-Hour (wings), UniversalKinase (thunderbolt) sxc.hu (horns)

Here we go with a new Infernal Lord, Furcifel, the Demon of Storms.
First things first: in traditional sources, such as Colin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal, this Demon is referred to as Furfur. Why did I decide to change his name to Furcifel (something I’ve never done to any other Demon)? Well, it’s a purely aesthetic choice: Furfur is awfully similar to the Italian word for dandruff, which is a bit disgusting; some scholars suppose the etymology for his name comes from a corruption of the Latin word “furcifer”, which means “rogue” and sounds much more fitting for such a badass Demon, especially if you stylise it as “Furcifel” to recall other angelic names.
So, provided that I wanted to include a Demon of Storms into my series, why did I go for one with such a troublesome name, instead of just choosing another? Well, just look at his picture from the Dictionnaire Infernal: where else have you seen such an amazing-looking traditional rendition of a Demon? It’s beautiful! As soon as I found out about him, he instantly climbed my favourite Demons list, so he had to be in my series!

Furfur from the Dictionnaire Infernal.

Such a beautiful depiction deserved a tribute, which is why I decided to basically just turn him into a fallen angel but retain the dragon wings and deer horns. The latter got bonus points because they visually recall the lightning motif and fit the Demon of Thunderstorms perfectly. Also, when I wrote down his biography I could easily justify this by having him being spotted often by mankind and generating the myth of dragon-winged, horned Demons in the first place. Speaking of which, I didn’t even have to make up too many things, as the Dictionnaire Infernal already says he’s an Earl (a Count) and commands all sorts of thunderstorms, and other sources list him as a fallen Throne (the name “Throne” comes from the same root as “thunder”, which is his element).
The rest of the symbolism was quite easy to pull off: a thunderbolt in his hand and a stormy background (which I shot and blended already a couple of years ago) would demonstrate his powers perfectly. I came up with the styling quite easily too, opting for a leather jacket to give him even more badassery.

All of this happened quite early in the development of the series, but the longest part was, as usual, casting the right model. Given the elegance of the deer figure in the drawing, I wanted someone slender, with delicate facial features to portray Furcifel. At first, I asked an acquaintance of mine if she was interested in posing dressed up as a male, to which she agreed. I didn’t bring up the subject again for what I think might have been a couple of years because I never had the chance to organise a meeting, and when I finally did she had changed her mind. This troubled me a bit because I was quite specific in my mind about Furcifel’s general body frame, but then, last summer, I came across Francisco in the best way I’ve been coming across people lately: insulting Lana del Rey.
The thing is, lately I’ve become much more socially awkward than I’ve ever been and I have quite a hard time handling interpersonal relations, especially with people I don’t know. I have spent a few months kind of staring at Francisco from afar while the idea of him being a perfect cast call for Furcifel kept growing in the back of my mind. As I eventually told him, what made him perfect for the role was not only his body frame and delicate features, but especially his melancholic-looking eyes, which would add some nostalgia for Heaven and thus extra depth to the character. Also, there is a huge shortage of blondes in the Court. I found him so perfect for the role that I was too scared of a refusal and could not bring myself to propose him the role. Seriously, we made friends on Facebook on June, started talking sporadically in August and I could only find the guts to ask him to pose in December, riding the wave of enthusiasm I got from Leonard.
Even though we scheduled a shoot in February, he decided to pull off almost last minute, but since we had found out we get along very well we decided to meet anyway and I took the chance to basically force him to pose. Although, in my defence, I have to say he got almost more enthusiastic than I was when the final deadline was decided. It took me forever to postproduce the photo because in the past weeks I’ve been on minimum inspiration and I’ve got tons of older works to do, but at last, here it is.
I always say that, in hindsight, waiting even years to shoot my Demons is always a good thing because I get more proficient in what I do and I can pull off certain editing effects better. This is especially true in this case as, on the one hand, I now have a softbox which was extremely useful, given how I had to direct the light according to the bolt he would be holding in his hand. And there was no way on Earth, Heaven or Hell I could have given the right highlights and shadows to the horns to make them look tridimensional a few years ago, let alone blend the horn into the skin like I’ve done now. Seriously, I’m very, very satisfied with how I edited this picture.

Furcifel by GothicNarcissus – detail. Click to enlarge.

Now, the final details: yellow is the theme colour I chose because, on the one hand, I was seriously running out of colours, on the other it didn’t fit any other Demon, and finally because it’s often associated with lightnings and electricity, especially in children’s drawings (but you can also look at Pokémon, for that matter: many Electric Types are yellow). On the other hand, choosing the song was a piece of cake: I hope that Storm, by my favourite band Theatre of Tragedy, doesn’t really need much explanation. No, okay, it does, ‘cause beside the title, the lyrics are just perfect for the work.

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!

The Crow

“Golden days are so far away.
There’s a black rain up above.
Out on the wind you hear her call,
She’s under your skin and you drift away.

She spreads her wings
When she’s gonna fly, the crow.
If you make her sing,
When she’s coming she will let you know.

Her frozen hand takes your breath away
As she leads your soul through the dark.
You know that she came to break your heart,
But oh, when she moves you fall in love again.

And she spreads her wings
When she’s gonna fly, the crow.
If you make her sing,
When she’s coming she will let you know.
She spreads her wings
And they black out the sun.
You won’t hear her sing
And she’ll leave when the damage is done.

Cold heart, warm gun, a dying sun…
Bright eyes, black soul, she’ll never let you go.

And she spreads her wings
When she’s gonna fly, the crow.
If you make her sing,
When she’s coming she will let you know.
She spreads her wings
And they black out the sun.
You won’t hear her sing
And she’ll leave when the damage is done.”

[ The Crow – Hurts ]

This photo… just happened. Really – and it’s a rarity for me, especially when my long-term projects are concerned – I just shot it, fell in love with it, and it started singing to me this song.

So, I was at BriarRose’s place and, among the bagillion things we end up doing at the same time, we decided to take a few photos with a “boudoir” feel to test my new softbox. We were mostly toying around with laces and silk robes for a few photos inspired by Portishead’s Glory Box, until BriarRose sat down, turned to me to tell me something, and I froze this exact moment, perfect light and all.

And I don’t know, it was just so The Crow it had to be in the project.

 

Just for the record, my original idea envisioned a fashion-oriented portrait from the collarbones up skimming over the keywords in the lyrics, so velied hats, feathers, a pale cyan background, blood-red lips and an innocent look to contrast it all. I think I got the song backwards: I would have gone for an intimidating, fancy outer appearance hiding an inner innocence, while the song is actually about the polar opposite. An intimate portrait of a young woman with such a piercing gaze goes much better with the lyrics and melody.

The reason is probably that I’ve had a weird relationship with this song: for the longest time, I kind of just heard it without really listening. I didn’t quite “get it”, so to say, I drifted off for its running time and didn’t pay it any more than the bare minimum attention. Then something changed, perhaps thanks to this photo, and it’s since become one of my favourites from Exile. I guess it just had yet to speak to me and I had to truly listen.