Fashion

Eco Project: Dried Baby's Breath

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Unexpected Hobby: Dried Flowers

Last year during the pandemic I picked up a new and frankly unexpected hobby.

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Dried Flowers

Embracing feminine energy

Why unexpected? Generally speaking, my hobbies and interests are on the masculine side. I used to spend countless hours practicing parkour, I enjoy climbing rusty buildings to get to the highest point, my favorite subject in school was P.E… you get the point.

Once the pandemic commenced I became an unprofessional hermit. Yes, I was frightful to go outdoors especially as a New York dweller and was afraid to get a friend sick. So I stayed inside for most of the days. On the flipside this also made me appreciate what I usually take more for granted. One of those things was the flowers growing out on the streets, in the park. Maybe the creative in me was looking for a new adventure, but this further appreciation for flowers led me to venture into making dried flowers and pressed flowers. This pandemic allowed an opportunity for me to step a little more towards my feminine energy.

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After some months of experimenting I purchased some baby’s breath from a local market and successfully made a dried edition of them after two short weeks. It was quite a simple process. Now it adds a lot of home and photo joy into my life. The wonderful part about these dried flowers is that not only can they make soft home decor but they also serve as reusable photo props! When I say reusable, believe me they last unless you smush them, please refrain from doing that.

Go longevity.

The following are some photos created with them. Enjoy!

All of the photos are taken on medium format film, Portra 400.

The models are my good friend as well as phenomenal model Tenzing Kalden from MMG.

Any questions? Feel free to drop them in the comments below.

Cheers,
Masumi

Eco Project: Passive

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The Fabric: Abandoned Curtain to Photo Prop

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Once Thrown Away

I believe that the lifespan of an object rests in the eye of the beholder.

Last November when moving out of my apartment, I noticed that my roommate had left behind his curtains when he moved out a few weeks prior. Sensing that an opportunity to reuse them will later come along, I brought the curtains to my new location. As anticipated, the beginning of this year found a chance to repurpose the curtains for a photo project. I am glad to report that after a combination of time, cutting, and sewing, the curtains ended up serving as the main aspect of my most recent shoot. In fact I was fortunate to use them for a few other expressive photos, but the main purpose was for the project which you will see in this post.

So you may be asking: “What did you do with the curtains?” Well, I took the two to three curtains and turned them into one long, approximately 25 foot strip of fabric. After hours and days of cutting and sewing by hand, the curtains, once thrown away became a nice and sturdy strip of fabric. When I tell you that the estimate length of the fabric is about twenty five to thirty feet, it is because frankly I haven’t measured it. What I do know is that it’s long enough to span an entire room.

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The Representation

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Passive

Why is the project named passive?

Let’s discuss this photo project.

Ever since reaching the age of thirty I have been appreciating more deeply the opportunity to simply be alive. One thing that has been fascinating me is the undeniable reality that nobody knows what our individual lifespan is. What most of all know is when we were born and how old we might be today, at this moment. What we will never truly know is when we will pass, when we will die. Or as some of us would say, when our end is. What makes this intriguing is the fact that most of us live every day, never knowing if today will be our last, or tomorrow, or in 50 years. We just live day to day, innocently, unknowingly.

The long fabric to me is the representation of the length of our lives - we don’t know where the end is, but yet here we are doing what we do every day. We might be talking to a friend, brushing our teeth, daydreaming, dancing, crying, working, yet in every frame of our lives, there is that line. It is “just there”, quietly existing with us.

This line is passive.

Gentle, coexisting with us, passive.

Now for those who may be feeling uncomfortable reading this, this is not meant to bring up any fear. If though, it is raising anxiety in you perhaps this can serve as a wakeup call for us to live with a little more intention, a little more motivation, a little more honestly. To me, the passive line is simply an indication of where we might be in our lifespan, and I hope to simply breathe with it.

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All of the photos were shot on medium format film with my still favorite Kodak 400. For more technical information feel free to drop a question below.


Big thank you to the wonderful model Tenzing Kalden with MMG.

Hope you enjoyed, more to come soon.

Masumi