Context and Background
The year is 2007. I'm in my second year of University. I am studying an Undergraduate Degree in Visual Art, and I'm taking a digital photography class. I am tasked with making a photo book. The theme is portraiture. These are those images.
An essay should accompany this body of work, I'm told. There should be a theme that ties it all together. I have no idea what, or who to use as a portrait subject; other than those surrounding me in my class. I'm interested in the imagery evoked by an enormous cohort of "Gothic Metal", and I use this as my basis, with my visual style leading more to Romanticism than Goya.
As we'll see throughout this series of images, however; there's a bit of obvious darkness throughout! Each image is inspired by a single song.
Image 3: Beyond the Veil
The band Tristania - a much heavier, more elaborate, and more "gothic", in the sense of its grandeur inspired this image, which is a fairly literal interpretation of the title of the song.
It is a image about death, about mourning, and of implied beauty; yet, was ironically shot on an incredibly sunny day. Key lines from the song that gave this image substance and meaning: "Cross my heart with a glance upon the star of riddance / Drift afar like teardrops on the Stygian River."
More About this image
This was shot on a Fuji DSLR, in full sunlight, with a faulty light meter. The light meter continued to treat the scene and sequence of image as though it was bracketed, even though this setting was disabled on the camera.
As a result, only every third exposure was usable. I was very lucky to salvage this image out of that calamity, but lucky for me, the model, Anthea - a friend was very understanding of the situation, and very patient to ensure that we were going to capture the right shot before giving up and leaving empty handed.
Track that inspired this image
This is just a link to the song - this is not my video.