This book presents an important part of my work, concerned with macro experimental staged sets and with finding new ways to enhance what nature already placed there and understanding how one can give objects and sets their corresponding meaning and fill them with a particular energy.



The Artificial Light Macro project is a particular quest aiming to achieve crisp, noise free results, using different lighting techniques. It has been developed into many different branch projects which have different studio stage sets characteristics which bring them apart. Attention and innovation would be the main terms, imbued in a certain vision and atmosphere you wish to embed in the images, and overall, much patience, searching, organizing and working nights.



All the images from the A.L.M. project are realized with the following idea in mind: to be as close to true photography, made from the camera, as possible, though in a now digital age. This means that they do not involve any kind of photo manipulation, all objects and environment conditions are simulated and placed on the 'studio stage'.



Almost all of the applied procedures are the normal post production technical adjustments in Photoshop – almost all images are HDR processed and locally adapted - color corrections, curves, shadows, saturation, a bit of noise removal in some cases, some sharpening, all applied to more or less, depending on the case. Other in-depth techniques are used on some of the images with Polarized Reflection or Glow, due to the more complex workflow; still, they do now involve photo manipulation. Some dust and noise is removed and some corners are filled up in black.



Tremendous patience is needed for some of the arrangements, as the Eye Pair or The Egg. Also, handling many plants at once is a challenge in its self. Still, I believe that a single person can give life to sets even bigger than Summer Dream, the seven piece work that defines the Spirit Woods section. It was a true joy in creating that one. I still remember the insects that were coming out of the pieces of moss and wood that were on the kitchen floor.



The arrangements are definitely not done just after the rules of space partitioning and other principles. Though the art of Japanese painting and giving energy to even the most simple and seemingly mundane object is open to many years of study, you should still eventually feel that an object has its home in a specific place, area, or that some geometrical forms, be they visible only in terms of composition, are arranged as they are because of a more personal, mythical meaning.