The Taiga: Snow Witch
The Taiga continues through the winter months with the Snow Witch, a creature of my creation. As I work on this series I am more and more feeling connected to the world around me and very inspired by nature. I wanted to not only represent each season in these photos but actually go out and shoot in every season to show the beauty that is New England.
The kernel of inspiration that brought this snow character to life was the idea of creating someone frosted over with snow. I found some spray-on snow, which is basically a can of foam that shoots out to add smocking to Christmas trees and similar things for holiday indoor decorations. I experimented with covering fabric and designed the costume with a large train in the back in order to have a large canvas to play with the fake snow “frosting” on! I wanted to experiment with fake snow as well as I saw an example and loved the glittery look to it. But I was told that many varieties are made from thin shards of plastic and I am always very conscious that I do not bring anything harmful into nature when I do these photos. All of the colored powders I use is biodegradable and I never leave anything behind in the woods. So that idea was nixed, and I decided to go with smoke bombs instead.
The costume is a robe of sorts, not from any specific time period but large and dramatic. I love working with dramatic silhouettes and combining natural elements with more structured garments. Honestly I also wanted to make something with a high neck so whoever I picked to model would be able to wear warm clothing underneath, as I knew I wanted to shoot in the wintery woods.
The model I chose, Carter Pierre is an amazing local model who I met at a fashion show a few years back and always meant to work with, but hadn’t had a chance until now! She was such a good sport about venturing into the snowy woods, and I am grateful to her and Zach for agreeing to go out to the Medford Fells on this snowy morning!
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