Maia Flore...

Maia Flore was born in 1988 in Franc and is currently living in Paris. Her most recent and famous piece of work is her investigation into 'sleep elevations' which touches on childhood memories as well as incorporating the theme of reality and imagination.



"Her approach fits into a research of coincidences between reality and her imagination. Her world is a complete fabrication in form of touching and enchanting narrations, even surrealistic."



Her photography is inspired by what she perceives as the boundaries between reality and unreality . Her subjects are often young women in an elevated state to portray the idea that they are asleep within a dream or  fantasised world. Her intention with these images was to emphasise the attraction the girls feel towards their new and boundless surrounding and the uniqueness of their new reality. She often uses fairly bland and sparse backgrounds and landscapes as the backdrop to her images to give the idea that the girls are being taken away to a free and endless world. 


As well the 'sleep elevations' series she has done other sleep related work such as the photographs of the girls leaning against normal sleep environments such as beds and also the contrast of abnormal sleeping environments such as forests.  

This is taken from her 'sleep elevations' series. It is situated in the middle of what looks like a barren and empty forest on a cloudy and misty day. The white cloud in the background of the image allows for a feeling of emptiness and escapism which links into the idea of freedom within childhood memories as well as the dreaming state. In the foreground of the image is a bed with a lonely mattress on it which appears to be slightly buried into the ground. Levitating above the bed is a girl with a pale coloured dress on, who looks as if she is asleep and is being pulled up by the floating white blanket above her. 
In my opinion, it looks as though the girl is weightlessly dreaming and the dream has come to life in the form of this photograph.
All of Maia Flore's sleeping photographs appear to bring the dreamt girl is dreaming to life within the image. For example the bed being sunken into the mud and the way she is dressed in a formal dress which wouldn't normally be sleepy in suggests the idea that she is dreaming of being somewhere else.
The colour formation is significant as it starts at the bottom with deeper more earthier colours with the colour of of bushes and the mud surrounding the bed as well as the bed being slightly darker. It then gradually becomes lighter as you look up the image starting with the girl who is dressed in a pale coloured dress and is fair skinned. Then the white of the blanket contrasting against the light grey of the cloud which further implies the sense of weightlessness. 

My responses...

I started by doing some responses to the photos Maia Flore takes in relation to her 'sleep elevations'. I chose to use a bedroom as my background instead of doing a carbon copy of her work as a way of emphasising the sleep theme and bring in the environment of sleep throughout these pieces of work. I edited the background to be desaturated and dark to enhance the eerie and mysterious feel which is portrayed in the way she takes her photos outside and in uncommon sleeping arrangements. I then used photoshop to make the subject appear to be elevated above the bed,which again, enhances the dark side to these photographs. Furthermore, I decreased the opacity of the model to create the look of her being transparent which suggests that she is ghost like and not really there in reality. This was inspired by the way Maia Flores elevation photographs appear dream like and unrealistic. In my opinion, although these images appear dark and mysterious they offer a fairy tale and dream like way of presenting and portraying the simplistic and every day routine of sleep.

I then looked at her 'twin photographs'. I started by taking photos similar to hers by using myself as model and a plain background as to not distract from the subjects in the foreground of the image. Although the images by Maia Flore are not directly relating to sleep, they offer another unique way of presenting it,which I wanted to adapt into my 
project.
To do this I used the same positioning as in Flore's work with two people stood next to each other, or edited to appear so. To link them into my project I used additions that are symbolic of sleep, for example having their eyes closed and their bodies relaxed are physical signs of being asleep. Furthermore, the use of clothing represents sleep in that, pyjamas are something you wear when you are sleeping, which further relates it to my project. Although, the starting point and inspiration for these photos isn't necessarily linked to my title of sleep, in my opinion, they allow for an interesting adaptation and development of the word and contributes to the viewers own interpretation of the imagery.