Today, we’re featuring a lovely fine art series from film photographer Courtney Bell. Courtney drew inspiration from the Greek Muse Thalia for this series and captured the images on medium format film. Here is more from Courtney about the creation of this project…
The model in these photos, Shawnetta, has become somewhat of a muse for me over the past year, which is precisely what inspired the idea to have her portray one of the nine Greek Muses for this photo shoot. I chose the muse Thalia, who was the Muse of Comedy and Idyllic Poetry. However, I didn’t want Shawnetta to simply re-create Thalia’s Greek mythology persona. Instead, I wanted to create a more realistic, modern-day (dare I say “mortal?”) version of her.
As someone who was constantly being called upon by playwrights and poets to help inspire them to create joy and laughter through their writings, I couldn’t help but wonder how Thalia was able to maintain a constant, inspirational level of joy and happiness herself? What if this was sometimes a struggle for her? What if she even resented having to “put on a happy face” every time her name was invoked?
With these questions in mind, Shawnetta and I worked together to create this photo series that tells the story of what a day in the life of modern-day Thalia might be like if she were, indeed, struggling with the very human emotions described above.
Analog cameras and films used: Hasselblad 500CM (Find at KEH Camera with code SIWF21 for 5% off or on eBay) | Kodak Portra 400 (Find on Amazon), Lomography Color Negative 800 (Find on Amazon)
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Blog Comments
Rich
September 1, 2021 at 5:42 pm
Hmmm! I’ve never thought of Muses having an “off” day! (Then again, I don’t think much about Muses, anyway. 😉)
Very nicely done photos. Congrats.
–Rich
Courtney Bell
September 2, 2021 at 8:01 am
Haha! I actually thought the same thing, Rich, so I appreciate your comment. I’m also guessing that the Muses never had “off” days, which is why I thought it would be interesting to depict this particular Muse as being mortal and showing the other side of the coin, so to speak. Perhaps for my next series I should photograph a mortal version of Melpomene, the Greek Muse of Tragedy, doing stand-up comedy or playing with puppies or something? lol! 😉 Again, thanks for the kind words.