A bit late for a Halloween post, but I never needed my favorite holiday as an excuse to dip into the darker dreamier parts of myself.
Any fan can see that my fascination with nature and the occult has been a steady inspiration for many of my works, but the medium of photography and the transient nature of being a queer person is symbiotic when exploring these arcane influences.
It has been a beautiful Autumn in Montreal, and I've been all the more inspired by the vivid contrasts, and the deep shadowy supernatural bite that Fall seems to bring.So, I have put together, a collection of photos of models and Autumnal nature that I've been working on between the demise of summer into Autumn, inspired by my DARQ DREAMZ (and recent obsession with misspelling everything).
Alongside are some words breifly expressing my thoughts on photography as a supernatural mode of transport, other worldly spirits, and their relationship to my queer identity.
Being a pisces, I'm terribly indulgent when it comes to escaping reality and creating worlds of my own-- Worlds others often want to join me in! With respect to the historical paranormal beginnings of the medium, photography has always felt like the art form that can actualize my relationship with these rather intangible dream worlds. Photography is the medium that allows me to be a medium.
There must also be a correlation between queer people's transient "between worlds" qualities, and their ability to communicate with entities beyond this pre-defined reality.
In Aboriginal American cultures, transgendered people are commonly believed to be chosen by a divine-force as "Two-Spirited", as their ceremonial identity, representing both a male spirit, and a female spirit. Their "between" nature endows them with the power and honor of communicating with the divine, healing, magics and the retrieval of souls.
A little bit of my own folklore, as I am of total Hungarian descent: In Pagan Eastern Europe there were men named Calusari who ritually embodied a third or alternate gender, wearing feminine attire, waxing feminine mannerisms while brandishing a sword to worship their Goddess, Doamna Zinelor, "Mistress of the Fairies". These goddess worshipinning transgendered shamans would heal, cure possession, and commune with the fairies through dance, never allowing their virginity to be lost to a woman, in fear they may lose their powers.
Like ghosts, Fey, or 0ther-worldly Spirits (how you chose to perceive them), the non-static paradoxical freedom of queer peoples truly defy the shape and form of our physical world, redefining our concepts of polarities, body politics, and spirituality.
Some of the photos added to the collection are from a series about a dying breed of incestuous modern witch boys forced to practice their rituals in an over populated decaying city, devoid of nature and solitude.
For information on how to acquire my limited-
Posts
