Blending Realities
The subjects of my screenplays and the subjects of my photography don't often intersect as much as I thought they would, considering that it was screenwriting that reignited my love for photography to begin with. I suppose going into photography with no real goal other than to photograph whatever I wanted at the time might have something to do with that, yet one medium will still often act as a catalyst for the other in some way. This time however, I found a rare crossroads between the two, which came in the form of interaction with one's own subconscious explored thematically throughout the narrative.
This came about after reflecting on many of the scripts I'd written in the past, trying to find unintentional common themes between them as a way of better understanding my own narrative voice. What I found was that just about everything I'd written was some form of introspective personal drama, with elements of the inner-consciousness of characters manifesting as physical elements of the story in some way. In To Police, we watch the aftermath of a police shooting unfold by exploring the lead character's own memory. In the upcoming Shine, the lead character has a conversation with his own subconscious which has manifested in the form of his father. This idea kept appearing in my work, so the next logical phase was to embrace it and find a way to bring it into my photography as well. "How?" you might ask. Well, with lingerie of course.
In my second collaboration with the lovely Brianna, we decided to try something new and come up with a way to blend a traditional lingerie shoot with this concept of personal introspection. So what did we come up with? Two distinct narratives being explored via two distinct types of film. The first narrative is told in Colour, and follows the story of a young woman who returns to her hotel room and enters into a hyper-realistic lucid dream. The second narrative is told in Black & White, and is the dream itself, where the character's thoughts and emotions begin to take on a physical form as she explores the depths of her fantasy.
This was such a fun concept to shoot, and has given me a lot to think about in exploring similar themes with my photography in the future. As always, Brianna was wonderful to work with and did an excellent job as the lead character in this play of pictures.
For the full series, see below...
THE DREAMSCAPE
- Prologue
- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
