I: Alles auf dieser Welt hat seinen Preis.
(Everything in this world has its price.)
-Otfried Preußler - 'Krabat'
II: A Tale of Water and Air:
This is a tale of water and air and how everything is intertwined with these elements.
Nature, life as we know it, even time is linked to water and air.
They are generous givers whilst at the same time tireless tyrants.
They are the roots to our existence, but can also wipe us out with a mood swing of a tsunami or a typhoon.
They are at times delicate like a spring breeze and at times ruthless like a winter's storm.
We are tiny dwarves compared to their grandeur, and young babies compared to their old age, as they are reborn in and endless cycle, water evaporates into air, air falls down as rain, forever elegant and strong, as we grow brittle and die.
- Kay Noire
(Stock and textures used by http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/ - http://mpepina.deviantart.com/ - http://9-liters-of-art.deviantart.com/ )
III and IV: The Lady of Darkness
"I'm headed straight for the castle
They wanna make me their Queen
And there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying that I probably shouldn't be so mean.
I'm headed straight for the castle
They've got the kingdom locked up
And there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying I should probably keep my pretty mouth shut."
-Halsey "Castle"
V: A Winter's Dream:
“As for you girls, you must risk everything for Freedom, and give everything for Passion, loving everything that your hearts and your bodies love. The only thing higher for a girl and more sacred for a young woman than her freedom and her passion should be her desire to make her life into poetry, surrendering everything she has to create a life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in her imagination.”
― Roman Payne
All images copyrighted by Kay Noire
I: Folie à deux
II: You always were my favourite drug. Even when we were doing drugs.
(Paraphrased) Stone Temple Pilots - 'Between the Lines'
III: Heroin
And just in this instant the heroin rush kicks in. The rush can feel similarly to an orgasm and all tension escapes my body, my pupils widen and a smile spreads on my face.
Even when the rush wears off after two minutes, my body is still numb. I am packed in cotton wool again and am extremely satisfied. I see us in the mirrors and there seems to be nothing wrong with this picture.
I close my eyes and all I can see are lakes of light blue. Beautiful, light blue. Serene and yet so kind, shimmering and yet so deep.
- Kay Noire - 'One More and I'm Free'
IV: "I used to be love drunk, but now I'm hung over.
I'll love you forever, forever is over."
- Boys like Girls - 'Love Drunk'
V: Memories of a Nameless Warrior
VI: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)
- Sylvia Plath
VII: California is like a beautiful wild kid on heroin, high as a kite and thinking she's on top of the world, not knowing she's dying, not believing it even if you show her the marks.
- S.E.Hinton - 'Rumble Fish'
All images copyrighted by Kay Noire.
When Men become Gods and Gods become Mortals.
I: When Gods become Mortals they find themselves made from flesh and blood, marble Gods no longer.
II: When Gods become Mortals they have to learn that their body is no longer omnipowerful and invincible and they're restrained by the limits of a fragile, human body.
III: Rebirth of Hercules
IV: When Hermes awoke as a mere Mortal.
V: Beneath their marble exterior lies a flawed human being.
All images by Kay Noire.
The female martyr:
This series is a tribute to all the women that have been senselessly executed by a patriarchal society for a ridiculous reason – like Anne Boleyn for not bearing King Henry XIII a son.
This woman is delicate, yet proud.
She is helpless, since she can’t change her fate, she will be executed, but she isn’t hopeless.
They can break her body, but they can’t break her spirit.
She is a royal ruler in a more divine realm.
Defiant. Resilient. Immortal. Timeless.
- Kay Noire
All images copyrighted by Kay Noire.
"The mask is the symbol of seduction."
-Thomas Sabo
"Once you go noire, you can never go back to blanche."
-Loki Noir - 'One More and I'm Free'
"For we are the true heroes of the working class. We are the magical unicorns. We are fairies and angels and made of pixie dust. For we all know the monetary compensation is not enough. We do it for the money, but that is not the true price we pay. It is our innocence that is bartered away with every blowjob. And your innocence is not a unique, once-in-a-lifetime thing like your virginity. It isn't there in one second and gone the next. It's not stolen or has been taken away. Your innocence is like a big, white bed sheet. At the start it is soft and fluffy and perfectly stainless white, yet with every time you sell your soul somebody rubs their dirty paws off on your bed sheet, staining it, soiling it with their filth. And gradually, it turns darker and greasier and no matter how often you wash or bleach it, it never returns to that fluffy, soft, perfectly stainless white state it once was. At the best, it can be off-white, tinted yellow or grey, it's muddy, but it's yours and you're stuck with your filthy bed sheet until the very end. And no money in the world could be justified compensation for this." Loki cleared his throat. "So gentlemen, respectfully, I applaud thee, you are the bravest men I know."
-Loki Noir - 'Fragments of Bel Ami Street'
All images copyrighted by Kay Noire.
Self-Portraits.
A dream I never had until it died…
As the song lyrics go: “All the world is all I am, the black of the blackest ocean. Never was one for a prissy girl.”
I was raised in a stereotypically masculine way and have never considered myself a very ‘girly girl’. One of my profs even recently said “You’re one of the boys, just that you have an innie instead of an outie.” My ambitions had always gone beyond the kitchen stove and baby diapers. But recently, I was told that I probably cannot have babies. And, of course, since then all I can do is think of babies, babies, babies, a house and a husband, and babies. That I no longer have the option to ever conceive a mini-me hurt me far more than I had anticipated and I found myself melancholically dreaming of a life I had never envisioned a real goal: marriage and kids…
And of course I also feel as though I've completely failed as a female...
All images by Kay Noire.
"Whatever you are physically...male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy--all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside."
— Cassandra Clare
All images by Kay Noire.
About the series:
Proposal / Starting out:
Essence: es·sence:
- the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.
- (philosophy) a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is.
- the basic nature of a thing : the quality or qualities that make a thing what it is.
I have always considered myself a nerd. I have always been attracted to various sciences, especially to the medical field. I love seeing and understanding how the world functions in ways that are logical and rationally explainable. People photography often leaves me unaffected. Perhaps because I’ve always claimed I have a bigger affinity with animals than with people or perhaps because I require time for people to grow on me. Be that as it may, pictures of pretty people have always seemed empty to me, even if the model was beautifully styled and perfectly lit. If the photographer was able to capture character, if I could have a sense or an assumption of that person by looking at that photo, or if I could tell there was a depth to that person, that there were stories to tell, then I would be intrigued. Yet is it at all possible to define a person’s character through a singular image? Wouldn’t props just be misleading or accentuating a single side and thus be superficial? Portrait artists have always tried to capture the essence of a person and not just render a likeness that bears similarity to their model. The likeness should give proof of that person’s character, or social standing or showcase something that is more meaningful and longer-lasting than a soulless reproduction of their physical attributes.
Commonly, when strangers get to know each other they inquire as to their jobs, their hobbies, choice of music or taste in food and beverages. We think it will help us make a connection, help us define the person, or maybe even subconsciously revert to stereotypes we are continuously accumulating that supposedly tell us if we’ll get along, if we think similarly: Are you Apple or Windows? Are you Marvel or DC? Are you Ferrari or Mclaren-Mercedes? We take ‘environmental’ Portraits, in which the surrounding helps to define the subject.
Alternatively, some photographers go the ‘back-to-basics’-route: Minimal or no make-up, a pure, clean background and an up-close framing, so that the focus is on the face with no distracting elements. We strive to get closer, to become more intimate, to extract what’s hidden deep below and bring it to the surface.
I would like to discover people with the closest proximity I can think of: under the microscope. I would like to take samples of their defining things: a drop of their blood, a strand of their baby’s hair, the ink of a tattoo artist, the wine of a vigneron. It’s an attempt to learn more of that person, to help visually define them, but in an environment I am comfortable with, a surrounding I can relate to, a bridge I am crafting to combine science with emotions. I am also hoping it’s a more unique way of looking at people, shedding another light onto them.
I would like to take a portrait of my subjects and then juxtapose it with microscope images, hoping there will be a clear link between the realistic and the abstract. While discovering microscopy I have looked at samples and although it was often the first time I had seen a certain compound under the microscope, I was usually overcome with a feeling of this visualization being ‘right’. And this is coming from a person who usually doesn’t feel the ‘situation-appropriate emotions’. As though this is how that compound is supposed to be looking under the microscope, despite me not having thought of it prior. The drink Champagne for example looks quite fancy under the microscope and I immediately thought it was fitting that Champagne would look like ‘that’. I hope there will be this emotional link and the sense of belonging between my subject and their specimen.
Development / Notes after a few weeks:
When I first started with Essence of People I was very fixated and excited about the scientific part of it and was dreading the people part. I was afraid that the portraits would look too boring. I suppose that is a matter of taste but from where I’m coming I loved working with my models / guinea pigs and I’m happy with the results. I loved interacting with them, I loved learning more about them, not only via the close proximity of the microscope, but through talking to them and finding out more about their lives, their stories, their triumphs and hardships. As this is a very personal concept. Despite it initially sounding a bit sterile, since I’m working with microscopes, chemicals and whatnot for half the time, it’s actually very emotional. I had to truly understand my subjects, before I could even think of a method of making a slide out of their samples. In a way I deconstructed them into tiny pieces, just to put them back together. And for me to be able to produce a microscope work that truly reflected the character of the subject (which I believe I succeeded in) I had to open myself to them as much as they opened themselves to me. Because without that photo on the jigsaw puzzle box that serves as our reference, all we’d be left with is a mountain of cardboard pieces. We wouldn’t know what the bigger picture is, we wouldn’t know what we’re dealing with, we wouldn’t know where we’re heading, we wouldn’t know what to be aware of.
I’m also touched by the extent of personal information some of them have shared with me. This concept would not be implementable, if my subjects hadn’t be as open, enthusiastic and cooperative as they had been. And of course I had to respect that there were certain comfort zones they didn’t want to leave, but that didn’t make the meeting a failure, but instead more challenging.
All images by Kay Noire.
“When I touched her body,
I believed she was God.
In the curves of her form
I found the birth of Man,
the creation of the world,
and the origin of all life.”
― Roman Payne
All images by Kay Noire.
"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
— Albert Einstein
"A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light."
— Leonardo da Vinci
"I've found that there is always some beauty left -- in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you."
— Anne Frank
All images by Kay Noire.
"Dogs never bite me. Just humans."
— Marilyn Monroe
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man."
— Mark Twain
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
— Mahatma Gandhi
All images by Kay Noire.
Dancing Mermaids, Sunbathing Mermaids and Angels of Death.
Or as Sebastian sang it in The Little Mermaid:
"Under the sea
Under the sea
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea"
The best things in life are either noire or rouge.
Roses, lipsticks, Louboutin shoes, blood...all beautiful, red things.
Abstract magnifications.
All images by Kay Noire.
“All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life has sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold
Had you been as wise as bold,
Your in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been in'scroll'd
Fare you well: your suit is cold.' Cold, indeed, and labour lost: Then, farewell, heat and welcome, frost!”
- William Shakespeare
All images by Kay Noire.