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Friday, March 21, 2008

Viona Rhapsody

While I was doing my research on ruffs, I came across this woman's site and was completely blown away.  Viona uses colour as freely as a drag queen uses wigs and platforms.


Wonderfully lush.  Surreally suggestive without looking sordid.  She tries to tell a story in each frame.  

Viona lists her talents as photography, costumes, art direction and styling.  You can tell she directs her shots very carefully and uses all four elements in each concept.  She is obviously a wild romantic inclined towards flights of fancies about fairies and leprechauns and courts of intrigues, enchanted woods and magical rivers.  

You can imagine the frames coming from Merlin or Narnia.  Fairytales are the staple and reality is fended off with a zoom lens.

There is a childlike glee in how she unfolds her subjects onto the tapestry of fanciful imagination.  A cultivated lack of sophistication in her treatment.  I rather like it.

I think she can use lighting and shadows and filters a lot more effectively to manipulate and achieve the mood she is trying to achieve.  Maybe even invest in a smoke machine.  

She should also consider using dancers to play with lines, formations to give more complex yet cleaner compositions to her work.  I can tell what she is trying for but feels that she is let down by the limitations of her models.

However, I can see that she might have some problems crossing over into commercial work.  Hopefully, she can traverse that threshold and still maintain her jewel-tinted glasses.

On a personal note, I love the costumes and would wear any of them in a heartbeat!  Sigh.

She actually sells her stuff on her website as well so if you're into cosplay and fetish, you might want to load up your shopping cart there.

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