Fantasy is my drug – Chiara Fersini

Fantasy is my drug. The world today is so grey and sad, and fantasy is the only thing that makes me see something different and good. It can also make people more optimistic.

How could the world have evolved without fantasy? How could scientists and researchers have discovered new things without having first imagined them? People often think that photography should be related to reality, and like reality it should be as close as possible to perfection. This is not my idea of photography. I believe that photography is more than technique, it is more than having an expensive equipment.  I am deeply convinced that photography (the way it means to me) is not the camera, it is the eye that stands behind the camera. My aim is to portray every single glance of the human soul and encourage people to dream and never stop believing in dreams.

I’m often asked the reason why most of my works are self-portraits. I believe that “normal” photography is about portraying an object or a subject so that it looks in harmony with the surrounding environment, this means that even though the subject of the photo is a person he/she will be treated by the photographer as an object. Self-portraiture on the other hand let the photographer keep control of his/her own representation.

Shooting a self-portrait is a provocative experience because it allows you to look at yourself  through the eyes of  others. To take a self-portrait (at least in my case) has nothing to do with being selfish or seek attention. You are in charge of the camera, you are in charge of yourself as a model and it is the best way to convey the message you have in your mind without having it to pass through the filter of others’ minds.

Moreover it is a very useful experience to know better your inner being and become more self-confident.

Being aware of what you are is the most difficult thing to achieve.

A self-portrait is truly an artist’s representation of self.

The most difficult thing is giving an explanation to what I create. Sometimes I have a clear image in my mind and I also link a meaning to that image, sometimes it’s like an uncontrollable impulse that makes me take my camera and shoot and only then figure out what I have done. In those cases it is very difficult to get to a conclusion, to a message and so to a title.

I don’t have a specific technique, I always shoot and edit following my instinct. Sometimes inspiration comes from a book, a philosophical concept, a discourse I had with someone and sometimes it comes from dreams. Every piece of mine has a story behind it. The creation of an image takes a very long mental process: I develop the story first in my mind and then transfer that idea in reality through photography, finally I edit it in Photoshop. I know an image is finished when I see it in the same way I saw it in my mind. As concerns the post-production part, in general my basic moves are adding surreal elements, adjusting levels and curves, desaturating and coloring and adding a lot of gradient maps until I get the look I want. I behave as a painter, adding lights and shadows manually to the image, sometimes I physically paint over the image to get the painterly look.

About Chiara Fersini

My name is Chiara Fersini but I am also known as Himitsuhana. I started research in photography in 2007 after a study journey in Japan. Before that moment I considered photography just as a useful tool to document events but I never gave to a photograph an artistic importance. Then I found out that photography could be much more than a simple snapshot of reality. The discovery of great digital artists made me want to try experiment myself, made me  improve steadily my skills and I began to think I could develop a personal style as well as to show the intricate world that I’ve always felt inside. My favorite field of research is the Surreal Photography.

My interest for Surrealism’s techniques and concepts meets another element which is a leitmotiv in my work: the painterly style. Before starting experimenting with photography I was a painter. So as painting has been my first love I have tried to keep it in my photos. I actually behave as a painter even when I am shooting and editing a photo in Photoshop. I look at lights and shadows and colors as if I were to paint them and that is why this painterly style is a sort of natural thing for me to achieve. Another factor that helped me a lot in developing this style is my deep love for old master painters. In particular I look at The Pre-Raphaelites group and Caravaggio.