Photography-wise, this is the first thing I’ve properly worked on since completing my course at the beginning of December. I didn’t want to let anything I learned during my time go to waste, but part of me felt pressured to produce high quality content despite the fact that I am still extremely inexperienced. It’s a very daunting feeling because I’m afraid I might disappoint myself, however I don’t want to let this fear make me complacent with everything I’ve been taught over the last six months.
Lately I’ve been entranced with the concept of fictional worlds – over my lifespan I’ve grown to love worlds of fantasy and science fiction, and have explored them through a plethora of mediums created by an array of artists, however the desire to physically visit places that don’t exist has never been more evident within me than it is now.
I have come to realise how important aesthetic has become to me in regards to the creation of these non-existent universes, and thus have grown to love one specific real world item that instantly gives the atmosphere an ethereal quality: fairy lights.
Yes, I’m a sucker for fairy lights. The one item that is in every single teenage girl’s and young adult’s bedroom (including my own) has become a tool for me to utilise in manifesting places I could only create or visit if I had a lot more money than I do right now.
Therefore, every image in this project (for now, anyway) has been created with the help of fairy lights.
I called it magic because I couldn’t think of a better title. I was searching for uncommon words with beautiful meanings that were relevant and I came across a few I liked, however none of them seemed to be right. I did come across one word I really favoured and wanted to use: luminescence, until I realised that was the name of Brandon Woelfel’s book and as these photos in part are inspired by his work, I didn’t want to step over any lines.
All of these photos were taken without the intention of being used in this project; this is more or less a compilation of photos from my 2017 library that I think sit nicely together and were processed to create a similar mood – one of a world is set in ours, but hints at something otherworldly.
These images were taken one night after my friend and I decided to go “graffiti hunting”. Although none of those pictures turned out as nicely as I wanted, I really like these ones. They were taken in the carpark behind her apartment. We used her wand and some fairy lights as props.
I had to photoshop out all those pesky wires to get the effect I wanted. So although it isn’t perfect (please don’t zoom in!), I’m happy enough with the result.
As part of the photography course I undertook, I had to submit a “product shot’. I’m not entirely sure how well this fits that brief, but I really enjoyed myself setting this up and playing around with the composition. This “interactive reed wand” is from Universal Studios Japan.
This image was taken with a different camera from the others — Honestly, I was just playing around in my room with the different settings (this was before I did the photography course so I had no idea what I was doing) but I kinda like it anyway..
That’s about it for now. Maybe I’ll add more photos to this collection one day!
