On the border of the forest and the town, where nature was beginning to intertwine with human activity, stood an abandoned factory. Its massive body, clearly divided into two wings, towered over the surroundings. Numerous entrances, testifying to the building's turbulent history, invited visitors inside. This place, which I had visited before, held secrets and photographic potential.
We chose a spacious room on the middle floor as a base camp. Although we made sure we were alone, the atmosphere was suffused with anxiety. Fresh traces of other people's presence - bottles, shoe prints and even acts of vandalism - reminded us that we were not the only guests in this abandoned place. Every crunch of a piece of glass under a shoe or creak of a door intensified the sense that we were being watched.
Our photo shoot was inspired by an abandoned building, which became the scene of a dark kidnapping. I wanted to capture the moment of dehumanization and the transformation of a person into an object. In an alternate reality created within the walls of this building, I wanted to depict the process of moving 'goods' between floors, their transformation and brutal treatment.
Central to the concept was a black, self-adhesive bandage. It played a key role in depriving the girl of her humanity. Her covered eyes and mouth deprived her of the ability to express her emotions, and her body, restrained by the bandages, became like a captive pack. In this way, I wanted to emphasize her total dependence on her surroundings. The bandage itself, due to its medical origins, despite the applications of bondage, gave something that can probably be circled as “clinical aesthetics.”
We started the process of transofrmation in the goods from the head. The model, deprived of her eyesight, a moment later her arms and finally her legs. Bondage, which is a bit like amputation, allows her to walk on all fours. From then on, she was moved between rooms for the rest of the time, remaining completely dependent only on hearing. This experience was both physically and mentally challenging for her.
Of course, all the action was controlled and between shots we served warm blankets and took breaks. The atmosphere on the set was friendly and all the time was interspersed between shots, conversations and laughter. Did we have a good time? Unanimously yes.
In the sterile interior, where the cool light reflected off the shiny tiles, we created an intimate theater. The focal point of the stage was a drain over which a girl stood, positioned like a sculpture. Her silhouette, lit in subtle pink, seemed to float above the cool floor, creating a contrast between the fragility of her body and the harshness of her surroundings. The photographs were meant to convey this ambivalence - beauty and anxiety, aesthetics and discomfort, all in one frame.
The harsh, industrial atmosphere of the room evoked visions of a meat cooler, where a person becomes an impersonal object, just another item on an assembly line.
The dark basement was the main shooting set. Abandoned pallet trucks and a freight elevator created a surreal landscape where the vertical world of the elevator and the horizontal world of the carts intertwined in an unsettling dance. The girl, perched on one of the carts, was like a pawn in the merciless game of fate. Her immobility in this claustrophobic interior heightened her sense of isolation and helplessness, emphasizing her dependence on her mysterious tormentor.
The near-total darkness that prevailed in the basement heightened the feeling of fear and disorientation. Her dilated pupils searched in vain for even a spark of light. Even if it had appeared, it would have been obscured by the bandage that covered most of her head. At this stage, she only knew her location based on what we had told her. I had to rely on her trust, she had to rely on how we described the outside world to her.
I wanted to create an atmosphere of claustrophobia and anxiety. That's why I used a color code and the elevator lighting was chosen to cast an ominous red glow on her. The girl, on the other hand, was illuminated with a cold light that emphasized her fear and helplessness - this gave an additional certain separation from the background.
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