“We all want to have something, to call our own.”
Be it a physical thing or a human being – we all want something of our own which we can dedicate our time and energy into. This is also the very reason we get into relationships, we create families and partnerships of our own and we fall deeply in love with what we possess. Which brought us to the idea of having every couple being able to own a shoot, a pre wedding shoot which they can safely call their own.
Always wondered if pre wedding shoots can be more experimental, more representative and artistic all at the same time. We were keen to explore lights, colours, and shading, the elements of art which we studied during our time in the museums of Uffizi and Hermitage (which we’ll touch on in another journal – look out for a new journalistic section that’s going live in mid Dec). Although the idea of pre wedding shoots is more or less established in what we see online nowadays but, no one said that that is the ultimate. It seemed like there was a way for a breakthrough, for a chance and for something more personal to each. We have hence been really into indoor shoots, artificial lighting with more control and abstraction, even using the colours of light to declare, to accentuate and to make people question. The concepts of this shoot hence all fell into place when Shaz and Lexy excitedly mentioned the completion of their renovations to their new home, with a dancing pole right smacked down the middle, and how opened they are to be queer, to be experimental and to explore creatively.
It was a powerful moment, to document the start of their livelihood in their own apartment and have both of them being all comfortable with each other and in their own skins. Lexy, being as adventurous, as opened and as joyful and Shaz, just watching, in love, amused sometimes and emitting a presence of strength, love and care all at once.
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We wanted to explore the idea of juxtapositions and look into contrasts and differences. It most often the case for relationships – when two different people coming together, staying side by side with each other, willing to work differences out or to just live with them. The commitment and differences is something we wanted to highlight, and it’s always something that they both hold dearly to. A studio hence came about when we thought to control the lighting situation and to be able to use lighting to create different moods, forms and environments. Why not, make studio shoots a thing again.
In order to inject Lexy’s passion, fiery love for creative works, bubbliness, and joy together with Shaz’s stillness, humour, stability and quirks all into a shoot, we explored the use of red and blue lights, crossing over periodically to showcase how the characteristics of these two intertwined. Also, the use of candlelight. While looking through paintings in the late Renaissance period, we have come to see how candlelight is used in numerous paintings in mood creation and depiction. The softness of the candlelight strengthened emotions, heightened the senses of a painting and highlighted features on subjects and the setting around them. It was amazing to see how these old painting techniques comes to live in photography and in this shoot.
Like the candlelight, love is soft, warm and kind. It is not the most obvious, it seemingly fades but its subtleness is what makes it magical.
