When Polina asked me what I wanted to be in this Halloween Season, I just simply told her that I want to become a "Dark Angel". She gave me a smile which created a cringe inside me. I don't know much about Halloween and never celebrated it so my answer was simple. When I was in school, one of my friends asked me once that if I want to be something rather than a human, what it would be and my answer was Dark Angel. Maybe it was just a random silly answer that time but slowly my deepest desire and fantasy became dark and angel. If someone insists on talking about my desire or fantasy, I simply say how about a dark angel.
I think everyone has some kind of desire or fantasy to become something else. My thought is most human has dark desires which they always hide and love to keep as a secret. It is supposed to be secret, mysterious, and often hidden. Anyway, I feel Halloween is part of a culture, some celebrate it and some participate in it for fun. Most of the people just go with the hype and wear costumes to present a characteristic. Just like Comicon where people choose a fictional character and merge themselves into it for 1-2 days. Though Halloween has a meaning and I doubt many don't know or care about it. For some people, it's just fun and they just love to become a character for a while. Most of the characters are fictional, mysterious. But I don't know whether Dracula ever existed or not, for me, they are just myths. I heard about witches and dark magic though but I have a doubt if demons and ghosts exist or not. It's all about people's beliefs.
Nowadays, Halloween is all about donning costumes, trick-or-treat, carving pumpkins, and turning that pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. it's more like a festival gathering.
I have been working with Polina for 5 months and she is an event organizer. It's been a great experience working with her and completely opposite of my academic and professional field. I work with her because I enjoy working with her. Also, I get free entry into different events because of her.
Polina has been thinking about Halloween for the past month, she was planning for different costume looks and locations for the Halloween photoshoot. As I have mentioned many people take Halloween as a festival and consider it as a fun experience so she was planning something unique theme for a photo-shoot event.
She wanted to do something unique and exclusive and out of the box. She has experience arranging such Halloween photoshoots because last year she had also arranged a small photoshoot for her clients. It was nothing special, some scary characteristics and tools she has used to create scary vibes. I was familiar with many characteristics like Dracula, witch, dead bride, and many more. But this time she had an idea.
She wanted to portrait herself as Maleficent- the mistress of evil. I liked the idea and instantly told her she should do it. She also chooses a location and that was Swarovski Castle, the castle is also known as a fairy tale castle located in Kharkiv Oblast and we thought that will be a perfect place for the Maleficent shoot.
Maleficent is a famous Disney fantasy character who is known as the mistress of evil. She is an evil fairy and godmother and a self-proclaimed evil. The whole character is inspired by the fairy tale called Sleeping beauty.
About Photoshoot:
Our first target was to make an announcement post basically an image and start marketing. When we start doing that we have got a lot of responses and over more than 20 people were interested. So, we had to come up with a plan and arrange 2 days of the shoot. This was one of the biggest shoots we have done with many people together. Besides the location we have selected was far away from the city so there was transportation issue as well. Some people wanted other characters too along with the Maleficent character.
The next job was to find the accessories and arrange desired dresses. The wing was available but the headpiece which Maleficent wore was not available so we had to order it. We also wanted to keep everything simple and we had a budget too. Everything was done by Polina and Yana, I was just a helper.
The day came up so quickly and finally, we were able to arrange everything timely. Finally, the day had arrived for the shoot and our clients were ready too. We arranged our trip early in the morning because it was a whole day of the shoot. Our photographer was Elena and she loves to work with Polina I think.
Anyway, we went to Swarovski Castle early in the morning and reached the location around 10.00 am in the morning. We started our journey from the city at 8.00 am so it was around 2 hours long drive outside of the city. After reaching there we offered coffee to our clients and then started seeing the spot for the shoot. Basically, it is Elena's job and she always chooses the location. I would love to say that this was the destination photoshoot too. We also took smokes and a carved pumpkin with us because some of our clients wanted to be a witch too.
I must mention that the wing was heavy and really big, we had to handle that wing carefully.
The dress of Maleficent was selected by Yana, a beautiful long black gown. The dress was comfortable too. Honestly, we all were excited and people around us basically tourists were so curious about our shoot. Many took pictures of us and talked about Maleficinet a lot. Especially the kids were excited.
Swarovski Castle is a tourist place so we expected a lot of people there. You can't see anyone near me but I was surrounded by a lot of people. The wing was made of styrofoam material so it's was not so heavy and easy to walk wearing the piece/wing.
I was excited because I always wanted such kind of attire and look for myself. I felt like it represent my inner fantasy and of course, the shoot was all about fiction and fantasy. I know I don't look like Maleficent because I haven't worn that headpiece basically two horns. I wanted to present myself dark angel so I just carried wings.
Oh, the Jack was with me of course, we call our pumpkin Jack, The Scary Jack...I really like how these photos turned out, a kind of fantasy world, my own world that is hidden from people.
The moment of truth, it's not easy to handle smoke because the smell and the smoke create a kind of polluted atmosphere which cause itching mostly into eyes. And also it's a challenging atmosphere both for a model and photographer to take good photos. In the end, all was good and it's was so much fun doing such kind of thematic characteristic's shoot. I have chosen orange smoke instead of black to create contrast.
We had so much fun and honestly it was one of the best successful events we have done so far. Our clients were satisfied and had a lot of fun too.
What about me? I really enjoyed this shoot, not only because of the whole atmosphere but also the character I wanted to present turned out really well. After all, it was part of me.
Do you have any kind of scary, deep, and secret desire?
Thank you so much for reading my blog...
Thanks to the entire team...
Happy Halloween Everyone
Event Organizer: @foto_sekta_kh , @polina___go
Photographer: @hudzenko.photo
Location: Swarovski Castle, Kharkiv, Ukraine
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Priyan
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