Lone Wolf (series)

This is a work on the song Lone Wolf by Halflives.

“What have you done here? I shed all my tears
My cold heart left in a dead world
I survived alone, I survived alone
Look at my scars now and then realize
It’s so hard not to break and fall

I’m singing to a new moon
Better off, better off alone

Now don’t try to help me
I can face my own
Woah, Woah
Now don’t try to catch me
I’m just like a lone wolf, wolf”

Let’s start with the video, which is recommended to listen to while reading the following text 🙂

The idea for this work came up quite a long time ago, but I was only able to realize it now. I came across this song after breaking up with one person. Strangely enough, I met another, but I was not ready to communicate because of my past experience. In general, now I perceive everything a little difficult, critically dividing people into “my own” and “all others”. And the line… it is not always and not entirely clear. Because today a person can be very close to you, and tomorrow you are removed from everywhere where your communication took place. So… let’s get back to work.

It is about the state. The state of the soul, first of all. It is about the fact that when someone hurts you – you find yourself alone with your pain and inner feelings. And your wolf rushes out. He tries to protect you from the world that surrounds you in a moment of weakness. And just like this wolf – for me salvation has always been in creativity. In combining the inner self with the outer self. So the work had to reflect something different than what came out in the end. But I am satisfied, because this path to the result – it was very valuable.

In my work, I wanted to combine the feminine and the masculine. I was supposed to have painted lips and I did. But the tone was close to flesh, which is why it is not visible in most of the pictures. Also, the eyelashes were supposed to stand out. Like in an earlier picture. But I took the face makeup and just made a couple of movements with a wide brush. This became the basis of the work, from which I continued to build.

Actually, it all started with my nails. Or rather, I remembered that I had fake nails. I decided to try making a set of claws out of them.

I cut a little at the edges and got the necessary shape. In another post a little earlier I already showed how they looked on the fingers. To fix them, I decided to use double-sided adhesive tape. Compared to the original glue on which these nails are attached, it does less damage to the surface of the nails and if necessary, the nails can be easily removed and installed back. Later, because of this tape, some of my nails fell off during the shooting, but overall everything went well.

The next step was to apply the letters to each nail. This raised the question of what to apply. My attempt at doing this with eyeliner was relatively successful. So I decided to try applying them with face makeup.

On the one hand, as it turns out, makeup doesn’t stick (or dry?) on plastic nails. On the other hand, I wanted the letters to be strokes and that’s how they turned out. I resigned myself to the idea that I only needed them for one job and I would be able to finish it.

I recently acquired a photophone mount (a normal one, not a homemade one like before) and was very happy to test it in this work.

The look…it was created “as the play went on”. I wanted to paint my lips a bright color and draw my eyelashes to make them stand out. My eyes had to shine like they did in this work. But I went the experimental route, taking a wide makeup brush in my hands and dipping it in black face makeup. I touched my eyes. And I saw what became “the same” that I liked. A kind of “Smoky eyes from Sa”.

I also put on my new earrings. I thought they would be the element I wanted to portray. Two earrings, exactly. I wanted to experiment with the color of the light. I wanted some of the work to be in red, the color of danger. The rest was to be done in monochrome. Panasonic paints very beautifully with its “Dynamic Monochrome” style.

What are those stupid “ears” and “mustache” I have in the photo? Well… I’m a wolf. Although I laughed, saying that I look more like a cat)))

I would like to return to the topic of lipstick. Am I a fetishist? Haha. Yes. Not in the sense that I like lipstick, but in the sense that I like it when. Well, you know. When the colors play. When they are in their places. Monochrome will not convey what the color will show.

Thanks to the white-gray background and the general composition, I managed to take a couple of, in my opinion, pretty good portraits. So. Check out how this matte lipstick looks in this picture. In my opinion, it sets the tone. Did I overdo it with the foundation? Probably. The picture requires color correction in this sense, but I didn’t do it because I understood that this way this work will be published even longer.

Whatever you say, I like the detail that micro 4/3 cameras give in terms of detail. Especially considering that this was a semi-macro lens. The aperture was too wide open for perfect sharpness. But I like how the makeup looks here.

When I do some work, I take a lot of pictures. I make different faces. I try to find exactly what I want to show. Some emotion. A thought. Don’t you think Panasonic’s monochrome is fantastic yet? 🙂

And then the blood started flowing…

This picture was taken after the shooting. For some reason I didn’t want to take a picture of it right after applying it. The inscription is made with fake blood. Ideally, it should have flowed, but I didn’t have that much time and opportunity to experiment with bloody applications again. So I just made the necessary word. It will be the final touch before I start creating anything.

Sometimes I ask myself where I end and my madness begins. This picture seems to capture it to the fullest. What will be the final work?

I’ll surprise you, but there will be several of them. And you choose for yourself which one you think is the best.

By the way, the inscription was applied to all fingers. And although the last one is not visible, it was signed 🙂

In some places I tried to “play Batman” so that the holes from the mask would be reflected in the area of ​​my eyes. It’s like a kind of reference, albeit a very stupid one 🙂

It wasn’t without the howling at the echo. Where would we be without that? You remember how beautifully it was reflected in the song 😉

Here, by the way, it’s very clear which nail fell off the most 🙂

Somewhere in between, everyone’s masks were supposed to bleed. But, as I mentioned above, I didn’t get too immersed in the work because I was afraid that something would go wrong and I would be very upset by the final result. I haven’t taken any such pictures for a long time, so it was a bit difficult for me to fully immerse myself in the experiments, especially since the shooting took place at the same time as this post is being written – somewhere around four o’clock in the morning.

I really enjoyed the creative process and the realization of this work. At the same time, I was afraid that I would not complete it in full. Did I achieve the result I wanted?

Now I live in conditions that are far from ideal. Sometimes I have no light for 12 or more hours. So I think that under my conditions I made a good selection of pictures. And I was able to realize myself by about 70%.

I don’t expect this work to be popular, because I like it myself. And the rest, probably, is not very important 🙂

“…I will run and crawl. I’ll be standing tall…”