Today, we have a guest post by photography student, Meidan Edri – thanks, Meidan!
Project: “God Save The Queen” is a photography project by Meidan Edri made in 2012. The project is an attempt to restore the portraits of three of King Henry VIII’s wives.
My name is Meidan Edri and I am a photography student at Ort Igal alon school, Israel. The choice of the subject for your final project is one of the hard choices for any student who studies the art and photography subjects. But for me the choice was pre-ordained- The Tudors.
The first time I was exposed to the wonderful story of the Tudor (like many of you, I guess) was in the successful series of SHOWTIME- “The Tudors”. That was the point of no return – I fell in love with the story of King Henry VIII, I began to explore, watch videos, read articles and books about the subject and even to visit beautiful England.
The work process was very challenging and demanding high accuracy. In fact, the work process on a single portrait took between two to three months – From choosing the model and sewing appropriate clothing to deciphering the original portrait lighting and the studio shooting day.
As mentioned, many efforts were made to create the maximum similarity between the original portrait and the “new” portrait but to a certain limit. One of the advantages of photography over painting is that photography is much more faithful to reality and according to this principle the idea of the project was designed – to revive the portraits of the queens. Additionally, the choice of models was also involved in my personal interpretation – I was looking for women that by their appearance will take the character and nature of her life story best through the camera (even if I had to give up the eye color matched). Before shooting, I sat with each model and told her the story of the Queen that she was going to play – it was important that the models did not just dress like the queens but also act like them and look like them.
In conclusion, the project “God save the Queen” was undoubtedly the most challenging project I took part in, but also most the most interesting. Finally, I want to say how much of an honor for me it is to write for a community that likes exactly the same things I like.
For more information about the project, please visit the links below or write me an email: meidanedri1993@gmail.com
http://godsavethequeen1.tumblr.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSWBJ7JVHxw
