Blake Jorgensen and the art of photo-surrealism
Hello,
Sometimes a client says to a photographer, “Let’s make art. Let’s push visual boundaries. And let’s do it together.” That was pretty much the brief when?Blake Jorgenson ?collaborated with Canadian superstar DJ and electronic music maven Andrea Graham, best known by her stage name The Librarian, to create her own library of promotional branding images for her music label. Blake and Andrea have been on parallel creative paths throughout their artistic careers, and they loved working together over the course of six months to design sets and conceptual approaches for this shoot.
Thanks to all that detailed, collaborative planning, they were able to shoot all the setups in a single day in Blake’s thousand-square-foot home studio in Vancouver. Blake built a forced perspective set out of plywood and used a combination of practical, in-camera effects with strobes, gels, projections and literally, a bit of smoke and mirrors to create these hauntingly surreal images that perfectly fit Andrea’s music, her signature color palette, and her brand. They were joined by a team of Blake’s frequent creative collaborators: Wardrobe/Stylist?Angela Cooney ;?Makeup/Hair?Amelia Stubbs ; Photo?Assistants?Neve Petersen ?and?Ben Girardi ; and Post Production?Kathleen Loski . I think these images are also a perfect reflection of Blake’s own brand. For him, photography isn’t just shooting the picture. It’s sharing every step of the artistic journey, from imagination to image.
Fondly,
Freda