It's been a while (August) since I posted something from my Melancholy Beauty series I made. This whole series was a project based of showing the beauty of melancholy.

Dark times have been passing by, and are coming back now and then. If you're depressed, you're feeling like being sucked into a black hole of nothingness where no emotions are present. Melancholy on the other hand is not comparable with a depression, even though many people think it's the same.

When you're melancholic there is still a presence of emotions: dark, somber, melancholic emotions. You'd prefer to isolate yourself in nature, finding rest and tranquillity. In these small things like finding rest in nature, dried flowers, leaves falling from the trees, ... you can find beauty. Next to that, melancholy is literally everywhere .. on the streets, in nature, winter even on you're face when you remove the mask you're wearing of pretending to be someone else, but that's something for another post.

With this photograph, I chose to let the model lay in the water, being peaceful and calm. In a post I posted earlier, you can find another photograph of this same shoot in the water, you can clearly recognize that there is a referral to the melancholic painting "Ophelia - John Everett Millais". With using a white dress and a young female model, I referred again to myself and melancholy's beauty.

Melancholic Beauty series
"Ilkem III"

Model: Ilkem
Photographer: Gaëlle Spaas Photography (me)

The photograph I mentioned in an earlier post:

With the referral to the beautiful melancholic painting "Ophelia" of John Everett Millais - the death of Ophelia by Shakespeare.

To me, this painting is covered with melancholy. While we're watching to a sad, emotional scene, you can see the beauty taking all of the attention. At first sight you won't even say it's a dark theme.