ICONS: Eikoh Hosoe

© Eikoh Hosoe

On May 6, 2010, Eikoh Hosoe was presented with the 18th-Annual Medal of Honor for Lifetime Achievement in Photography by the National Arts Club. This great evening was hosted by Master of Ceremonies Dr. Stanley Burns, President O. Aldon James, Jr., and Catherine Johnson, Chair of the Photography Committee, with whom I work very closely. The unbelievable list of previous honorees names some of my favorite artists, including Duane Michals (1994) and William Eggleston (2003).

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LEVIATHANS behind the scenes: The Siren’s Song

The sea monster for my first LEVIATHANS shoot was torn between two worlds. Sirens have often been mistaken for a kind of mermaid, sitting upon a rocky shore or swimming very nearby, luring sailors to their deaths with its song. In later Greek mythology folklore, Sirens are sometimes portrayed as aquatic and mermaid-like, and in fact, the Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian, and Portuguese words for “mermaid” are Sirena, Sirène, Sirena, Syrena, Sirenă and Sereia. Even in biology, the order Sirenia is comprised of fully aquatic mammals, including the dugong and manatee.

John William Waterhouse, Odysseus and the Sirens (1891)

The Sirens were actually portrayed as three bird-women parented by the river god Achelous and Chthon, otherwise known as Mother Earth. These dangerous beauties resided in a flowery meadow on an island, perpetually calling after their father who had gone to the sea and left them all behind. Another story had them banished to the island (possibly the Isle of Capri) after losing a singing contest with the Muses, and so they took out their frustrations by luring sailors to swim ashore, pouncing on them and ripping their flesh with their talons, then adding their bones to the piles already littering the island. Yet another tells of their ultimate demise, throwing themselves into the ocean after Odysseus passed without succumbing to their song.

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LEVIATHANS: Siren

Fig. 87.—Sirenia Alcaecaelia, caught in our fishing net, July 16, 1871. Note the partial metamorphosis of the spine. One of only three known specimens ever captured alive!

Visit LEVIATHANS to view the photo series and to read behind-the-scenes features!

WONDERLAND behind the scenes: The FRAGMENT Shots

For each of my photo series, I like to supplement the really orchestrated shoots with some spontaneously captured images that I like to call FRAGMENTS. Sometimes these FRAGMENTS happen before the thought behind a photo series even comes along, even planting the seed for an entire concept shoot. Other times, I will happen upon a scene so appropriate for whatever it is that I’m working on, I can’t resist taking yet another photograph.

The opening FRAGMENT shot in the WONDERLAND series, “Hotel Wonderland”, is a bit of both. I had completed the “Alice Falls” shot, and so I was digging for inspiration to help me continue developing the idea. On a trip to NYC, I decided to go sightseeing on one of those double-decker buses, just to take some pictures and see if anything caught my attention.

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WONDERLAND: Alice’s Mushroom

Her name had always been written on that magical mushroom.

Photographer/Creative Director: HUSVAR

Visit WONDERLAND to view the photo series and to read behind-the-scenes features!

WONDERLAND behind the scenes: A Mad Cocktail Party

As soon as I had finished making “Alice Falls” (see A Different Kind of Rabbit-Hole for that story), I remember feeling very certain that I wasn’t done pursuing this idea. But my Alice’s mind had just disintegrated—what could possibly happen after that? Well, nothing. It was so inconvenient that I been inspired by the very first big event of the original Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland story. So I did what every artist does when they run into a question they can’t answer: I changed the question. What happened to my Alice before she falls?

Once I had the basic idea for the story (see My Version of the Story for that—um, story), I knew that there was only one event from the book that could encapsulate the events that sent my Alice over the edge, and that was the Mad Tea-Party.

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WONDERLAND: Alice Stripped

Stripped of her former life, Alice at last finds bliss in an illusory Wonderland.

Photographer/Creative Director: HUSVAR
Model: Brooke Rewa
Wardrobe Stylist: Andrew Slyder
Photo Assistant: Luke Copping
Production Assistant: Nadejda Petrova
Lighting Consultant: Chris Santucci
Makeup Stylist: Anna Malskaya
Hair Stylist: Josselyn Scott
Wardrobe Assistant: Monika Byrne
Assistants: Laura Sargent & Emilee Hoelscher

Visit WONDERLAND to view the photo series and to read behind-the-scenes features!

WONDERLAND behind the scenes: A Different Kind of Rabbit-Hole

Though I don’t really remember what initially drove me to do the WONDERLAND photo series, I distinctly remember becoming obsessed with showing Alice falling down the rabbit-hole in a wholly modern and unique way. As it often is with creative work, the “why” doesn’t matter once the “how” starts asking its questions. And so “Alice Falls” (aka “The Spiral”) became the first shoot I did for WONDERLAND.

I knew that I wanted my rabbit-hole to be all in Alice’s mind, but not in the same dreamlike manner that the original Alice fell into Wonderland. This wasn’t going to be that strange but generally pleasant journey into the imagination. I wanted to show the disintegration of her mind as she fell into herself, like a snake swallowing its own tail. I wanted to see what was left of her sanity devoured by her thoughts. What better way to show that than a whirlpool of words?

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WONDERLAND: Alice Falls

Alice falls down the rabbit-hole of her mind, forever spiraling towards oblivion.

Photographer/Creative Director: HUSVAR
Model: Brooke Rewa
Production Assistant: Nadejda Petrova
Makeup Stylist: Anna Malskya
Photo Assistant/Set Illustrations: Nicole Dziedzic

Visit WONDERLAND to view the photo series and to read behind-the-scenes features!

WONDERLAND behind the scenes: Kill the Rabbit!

So at this point, I had built the Hotel Wonderland of my dreams (dark, I know) and remade Alice into a woman who would actually live there. Next, I needed some guests for her mad party. Attending the original party were Alice, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse. Seeing how mad my Alice turned out to be, I skipped the Mad Hatter. And assuming that the rest of the Hotel Wonderland was as decrepit as this particular unit, I left the mice in the walls where they belong . . . which left me with the March Hare.

As you can see from the above shot of the completed set (read Building Hotel Wonderland for that story), I had thought ahead enough to book three different “models” to fill the role of the March Hare, each very different from the next, to see which one would end up working the best. The realistic small brown bunny sitting on the high chair just was too small and harmless to attend the cocktail hour I had planned. And the medium-sized pink one just screamed Easter and drew too much attention away from the hostess. So the big (but otherwise nondescript) wallflower was invited.

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