Have you ever had an ear worm? A piece of music that sticks in your head? I get these with phrases too, and the book title 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' was cemented in mine, with an image of a woman's head rising from water, with a vibrant dragon on her cheek. I wanted to take that imagined image and create it.
It isn't that easy to find a young woman in Northumbria willing to undress and stand in a freezing pond in January. You get strange looks when you ask. The closest I got was Northumbria's finest cold water swimmer, but he wouldn't lose the beard (not even for art) so I settled for a wig mannequin from Amazon.
The head arrived, but the skin tone was ghastly. First step, to remove the glued on hair net, sand it smooth, then spray paint with a matt acrylic base coat. While the original skin tone had been unpleasant, the features of the face were quite lovely.
Next came making the dragon. I wanted to use UV face paint for this, as the vibrancy is striking under UV light. Face paint is water based, and easily washed off to allow me to reuse the mannequin in the future, but that presents a problem. UV face paint hates sticking to anything aside from skin. On anything plastic, it wants to slide back off. Apply it layer by layer, and each time you touch a wet brush to dry paint, that liquifies again. It's a real pain, and extremely difficult to use.
My way around this was to use adhesive stencils of the dragon and then plaster a very thick coat of paint on the stencil, then peel the stencil off with a razor blade. It works, and allows neat crisp lines.
Two light sources were used for the photograph. A Falcon Eyes RGB panel light with a diffuser and a Vansky UV torch. The panel light placed above and behind to create the impression of moonlight, and to define the silhouette of the head, separating it from the background. It also introduces highlights on the top of the head and collar bone.
The UV torch light illuminates the face, and brings out the colour of the UV painted dragon.
The finished photograph is perhaps the very opposite of the film. Not the brutal, action packed thriller but serenity and inner calm. An antidote perhaps. Simply the thought that the title evoked unfettered by plot or Daniel Craig.
Subconscious inspiration? I was introduced to tattoos by a female friend who we believed was terminally ill at the time. This was back in the 1980s and thankfully medicine came to the rescue. She had some stunning tattoos in browns which were rare pigments at the time. She took me for my own (by the talented Alex Binnie), and I have a Celtic knotwork piece on my arm which still reminds me of her. She's currently bouncing around the world being fabulous and for me is the embodiment of hope, strength and spirituality. Seeing the path she carved in life inspires me.
