Mourning Tree: Tragic Asylum 1

Steven Perdikis

Context and Background

The year is 2007. I’m in my second year of University. I am studying an Undergraduate Degree in Visual Art, and I’m taking a digital photography class. I am tasked with making a photo book. The theme is portraiture. These are those images.

An essay should accompany this body of work, I’m told. There should be a theme that ties it all together. I have no idea what, or who to use as a portrait subject; other than those surrounding me in my class. I’m interested in the imagery evoked by an enormous cohort of “Gothic Metal”, and I use this as my basis, with my visual style leading more to Romanticism than Goya.

As we’ll see throughout this series of images, however; there’s a bit of obvious darkness throughout! Each image is inspired by a single song.

Image 1: Mourning Tree

This is an image of a woman (as are all the others in this series) inspired by the Leaves’ Eyes song, Mourning Tree. The song tells of a woman mourning something that which may yet be lost.

The meaning I extract from the song is one where her husband, a warrior; is deployed elsewhere, and in the historical context in which I’ve interpreted this, she has no idea if he’s alive or dead.

There’s also some undertones that she is with child; and as a result, is dealing with the possibilities of never seeing a lover again, and giving birth to a child that will never know a father.

The much darker and potential meaning is that she’s absolutely terrified of a still-birth.

More About this image

This was shot in my home town of Adelaide, in Botanic Park, among the Morton Bay Fig Tree leaves. This was shot on an amateur level camera (a Fuji with a fixed lens!) and was then manipulated in Photoshop to give the human subject maximum impact, and for the environment to surround, and almost overwhelm the model.

If I was shooting this again, I’d definitely improve the composition, and would explore the “other side” – showing the anguish on the face, emerging from tangled roots.

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