For my project I was inspired by the love life of the painter Pablo Picasso. Throughout his life he had several wives because he no longer considered them attractive after they gave birth to his child. He fell in love, and after his child was born, the love disappeared, and he looked for that love in a younger woman. I created a series of 6 images, using the light graffiti technique and with the help of the artist Weef Smith, a friend of mine. The images successively contain the stages from loneliness and love, to the family and its destruction. Her alone, Picasso alone, both of them falling in love, forming a family, having a child and him running away and leaving his family. These 6 pictures were taken in the garden of the artist Weef in 4 separate meetings.
My initial plan was to create a portrait series of Weef’s wife who is the artist I work with inside the house. Seeing the outcome of the picture, I was not satisfied because I realized that it doesn't have that strong story which I wanted, so I decided to create a more impactful, meaningful series. This new series was inspired by Pablo Picasso’s love life because it has the spice and catchiness that I want. I started thinking what kind of pictures and figures should I include that show his entire disastrous love life, in just 6 images. I began to think about the stages of his relationship, and I realized that there was a continuous repetition: each wife was left for a younger girl after giving birth. So, I focused on one stage, where they both are, they know each other, they fall in love, they form a family, a child, and he runs away.
This series came out with great success in terms of the story. I think I was able to show the disastrous love story of Picasso through my pictures very clearly, and I am happy with that. However, it was not as easy as I initially thought. The biggest challenge was working with light and time. It was exceedingly difficult to bring out the same tone and intensity of light in all the pictures. On the other hand, it was challenging to look at the clock, and throw the same intensity of light for a similar duration, in each picture in order to have the same freezing effect of the artist. After 4 meetings and attempts, I managed to take a series of fairly balanced pictures - in terms of the light.
The work of Pablo Picasso and Gjon Mili, contain various elements: centaurs, flowers, people, objects. My work is focused only on portraits. Both he and I used two types of light & colors, white and yellow. White light is used more often in both of our projects. In my pictures there are geometric elements related to the inspiration of Picasso: cubes, pieces of square stone, tiles, bricks, lines from the dryer. Picasso always has doors, stands, chairs and other geometric elements around him.
I achieved the results I wanted, but If I had more time, I would have definitely developed the project more, because there is always room for improvement. Also, I would have developed it because I saw much more potential in the project than I initially thought. I would differentiate in every photograph the character (him and her) with a specific colour. Another thing that I would work on are the details of the drawings because I discovered that the artist is getting better with every time he draws on his canvas. I asked him to draw 6 paintings on canvas to try another idea, where I put together the picture (with the light painting) with the drawing (half-half). It is not the first time I have used light graffiti when shooting, but I think this time my work is much more elaborate, and I put much more effort in the research too.
I have a lot of other projects in my mind, where I want to use light graffiti because I consider it an excellent technique. I can combine the futuristic with the traditional which closely replicates drawing. The difference between the first and the last shoot is big because the light makes a big difference, and I had to learn to manipulate light. In post-production I created the same light intensity in all 6 pictures, so that they all look alike, and there are no differences between them. Fortunately, I managed to exceed my initial expectations and I am incredibly happy with the outcome of the project.
For my gallery, I will put the pictures on a wooden stand, placed next to each other, exactly as is the course of the story.
