Fig. 45.—Monachus Mare, lured into deep sea cage with walrus blubber, June 25, 1871. The head clearly means to trick prey into not seeing its true size. And to think that J.S. believed it an Architeuthis dux!
Visit LEVIATHANS to view the photo series and to read behind-the-scenes features!
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!
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.
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.
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!
Salvador Dalí
Rinoceronte vestido con puntillas (Rhinoceros Dressed In Lace) (1956)
Bronze cast
Sometimes, fiction really is stranger than truth.
The story goes something like this… It was the year 1515, and Pope Leo X had been sent a very unusual gift by Manuel I, then King of Portugal—a pet rhinoceros. Unfortunately, the ship carrying his present sank before it reached him in Florence, and so the rhino went down with it. But before it sank to the bottom of the ocean, the rhino had the honor of being the first ever seen on European soil, where it was sketched during a brief pit stop in Lisbon.
As it was a largely unknown creature, Europeans at the time had little information beyond their imaginations as to what a rhinoceros actually looked like. What they did know was what the ancient Roman Pliny had written about it—that it was a fierce creature and a mortal enemy of the elephant.
Willing to do anything to return to her dreams, Alice commits to a dark and final escape.
Photographer/Creative Director: HUSVAR
Model: Brooke Rewa
Set Designer: Bryan Lohr
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!
The creative process is such an mysterious phenomenon, equally elusive to scientists as it is to artists. While the human experience demands that we strive to understand it, our own inner workings will forever remain a gray space, an unknown method of connections with or without resolution. In my blog series ICONS, I will attempt to examine my creative process as I divulge my greatest sources of inspiration, my biggest influences, and what drives me the most as an artist.
© Floria Sigismondi
The photographer and director Floria Sigismondi has a unique style that continues to develop throughout her career. Her dark contrast-driven imagery has a nouveau-surrealist feel to it that makes it intoxicating to experience. Each viewing is an opportunity to step into an alternate reality forcing you to reinterpret your own. Her work often contains political undertones, a challenge to question authority, and the social mores that define our culture.
Looking at some of her earliest work, the elements of her style were all present even if they hadn’t yet fully coalesced. Through the use of selective focusing and playing with time-scale, she not only created alternate universes, she created unique ways to experience these surrealist environments.
All work Copyright 2010 Sean Husvar. All rights reserved.
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