Laura Zalenga Week: Soul

Laura uses herself in the majority of her images... most of them are self portraits of one kind or another. As she says in the intro on her website, look to her images to see inside her soul. I asked her why...

I enjoy using myself in the images because it means I can start straight away, when an idea comes to mind. I know 100% what I want from the shoot... and because it's a kind of therapy.

Here I have chosen two of my favourite 'self portrait' images:

This image is called 'Ariel in Me' because of the red hair which is created when she was overworking the image and something went wrong with the colours, and she instantly loved it. I instantly loved it too, the eye is stunning, so clear and bright. The tiny camera is cute and perfect for Laura and what is in her soul. The colours and contrasts are to die for.

On Flickr Laura says:

This is the pool in our house. We've lived here for five years now. The pool is still not finished. Always empty. Empty and cold. I was all alone standing on the little footbridge over it, and there was this picture growing in me. ...I needed a little bit of water in it and waited for the sun to almost go down. 

I had an old, big, grey shirt and took my first steps into this new created room. and suddenly I walked into another world. running, standing, dancing, laying in the water. It was my kingdom. my heart was filled with joy.
In the end I was so calm and still. I was just sitting there enjoying the silent mood. Thats why I take self portraits. It's such a great way to understand yourself. To calm yourself. To make yourself feel better. To make yourself feel,and the only person who had this picture in its mind was me. I did it and it felt so good. After all that I love this picture. I'm always able to recapture these feelings.

Wow! Beautiful... I think she said it all.

Laura's links:

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