SubscribeWONDERLAND
19 March 2010 | By HUSVARA Photo Series by HUSVAR
Alice traveled through wonderful dreams as a child—but as a young woman, she wanders aimlessly through a nightmarish life. She checks into the Hotel Wonderland and throws a mad cocktail party, hoping it will conjure up her childhood fantasy. As the reunion falls short of her memories, she realizes that she is unable to transform her hellish reality. Willing to do anything to return to her dreams, she commits to a dark and final escape. Stripped of her former life, Alice spirals into oblivion and finds bliss at last in an illusory Wonderland….
WONDERLAND: Hotel Wonderland
Dreams have a way of turning into nightmares at the Hotel Wonderland.
WONDERLAND: Alice’s Party
Alice throws a mad cocktail party, hoping to conjure up her childhood dreams.
WONDERLAND: Melancholy Alice
Unable to transform her hellish reality into the reunion of her memories, Alice succumbs to her melancholy.
WONDERLAND: Alice Escapes
Willing to do anything to return to her dreams, Alice commits to a dark and final escape.
WONDERLAND: Alice Falls
Alice falls down the rabbit-hole of her mind, forever spiraling towards oblivion.
WONDERLAND: Alice Stripped
Stripped of her former life, Alice at last finds bliss in an illusory Wonderland.
WONDERLAND: Alice’s Mushroom
Her name had always been written on that magical mushroom.
WONDERLAND behind the scenes: My Version of the Story
Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland has always fascinated me. When faced with boredom, a perfectly normal little girl from a perfectly normal little world falls asleep and suddenly finds herself in a magical dream world. But as that dream slowly dissolves into a nightmare, she longs to return home.
For this series of photo shoots, I wanted to use the moment right after she wakes up as the point of departure. What would happen to Alice when she faces boredom again? Wouldn’t she remember the dream but forget the nightmare? And what happens if she attempts to return to Wonderland again and again, only to find herself stuck in her normal little world? To what lengths will she go to return? Wouldn’t she try anything?
WONDERLAND behind the scenes: Building Hotel Wonderland
As my early sketch of the set will show you—and please forgive my stick-figure Alice!—the story always comes first for me. My Alice’s Tea Party has to happen someplace distinctively unmagical, so I chose an extraordinarily ordinary kitchen as the setting. Next, it drives the prop list. I selected objects that hinted at the original story (Dinah the cat, flamingo head faucet, hanging mushrooms, Wonderland sign on the fridge, rabbit in a highchair) and some that told my story (handgun, old electronics, machines, wires, dead rabbit with stuffed eyes). Only after all of that is taken care of do I think about technical issues like lighting (softbox and spots, in this case).
WONDERLAND behind the scenes: Remaking Alice
Casting Brooke Rewa as Alice was definitely one of the easy decisions I got to make for this series. I’ve worked with Brooke on other shoots before and since, and on top of being really easy on the eyes, she’s just a great model to work with.
It had always been my intention to somehow blend the youthful storybook look of the original Alice into that of my depressive ex-debutante. My first step was to put her in a shinier (and shorter) version of the original dress—a sexy little something that Alice herself might have worn to high school prom.
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.
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?
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.
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.
| Comments: 2
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Hello, I view all your posts, keep them coming.
LOVE IT! as an alice myself, i truly appreciate this work! curious….