Since my youth, I have been accompanied by the great myths and stories of fantasy literature. Vampires, demons, werewolves – they stand for forces greater than us, for longings that we hardly dare to express, and for fears that are deeply rooted within us. In religious myths, I find the same visual power: the play of light and shadow, seduction and damnation, passion and sacrifice.
This world of symbols and archetypes flows directly into my photography. When I stage young men, I see more in them than just the body. I see projection surfaces for all the stories that have shaped me – the eternal vampire seducer, the dark energy of the demon, the wild, untamed nature of the werewolf. Each of these figures allows me to make the animalistic, the seductive, and the passionate aspects of the man visible.
The props in fantasy photography
The transformation in a fantasy shooting begins with details: UV contact lenses that make the gaze unearthly, fangs that are both promise and threat, artificial fingernails and claws that bring out the wildness. Dark Fashion in Gothic style or the elegance of Victorian fashion give my models an aura that seems timeless and unearthly. These props are not a disguise for me, but keys – they open the door to another reality, in which the young man becomes not just a model, but a being.
I am particularly drawn to the field of tension in fantasy that arises from this: strength and vulnerability, beauty and threat, desire and fear. In every picture, I look for that moment when the viewer feels that there is a deeper truth behind the costume – the truth of our own longings, our secret erotic desires, and repressed fears.
When I photograph, it is for me a piece of returning to those stories that have always fascinated me. As an author, I write my stories; as a photographer, I create images that implement the myths and yet are very personal. Images that put the young man in a role that is greater than himself – and that at the same time reveals something that we all carry within us: the dark, the seductive, the insatiable.
