All images by Nina Y. Used with permission
Many things can’t always be done in camera, but with lots of imagination, story boarding and understanding of the creative vision that you have you can create some very magical photo manipulations. Take Nina Y for example: she says that she finds her inspiration in many things–but attributes a lot of it to fairy tales. “My daughter absolutely loves Disney fairy tales! With her, I have fallen back in love with the beauty of these cartoons, and Disney’s presentations of original stories.” says Nina. “I try to recreate them in my own way, while keeping them more suitable for older folk by adding a bit of funny sarcasm.” Nina continues to state that much of her inspiration comes from happiness, poetry, music, and autumn forests–but states further that everything in life in one way or another can serve as an inspiration.
Nina’s photo manipulations hold a dark surrealism to us, but behind them are humor, quirkiness and sarcasm. She, like many other artists, considers this to be a reflection of herself.
To create the images, Nina works with either her own stock materials, purchased stock or does collaborations with models around the world. Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom Bamboo Tablet are her tools of choice. “I set myself high standards, which I strive to follow with all my heart. On that note, my photo-montage pieces can often require a great amount of work.” says Nina. In fact, she tells us that in the last few months she spent a large amount of time planning a piece because it’s so elaborate.
“Once stock material is chosen, I like to change a lot of things in order to get the desired finished result, and so more often than not, I like to create my own vision of the main subject, something that could not be achieved by just photographing the Model and often, something almost entirely different and otherworldly.”
More of her images are after the jump.