'Drama is life with the dull parts left out.'
Alfred Hitchcock
In his 'about me' section on his site, studioAtruong's Alain describes gravitating towards the dramatic interplay of light and shadows. On his Model Mayhem page, 26 year old Peter Baranyai shares his experience of working in an inventive theatre company and having just graduated from drama school.
It was drama, or more precisely, dramatic, that came to mind when viewing the images from this shoot. Dramatic can be a difficult concept to capture just right. There is a fine line between dramatic and overly dramatic and camp. Alain and Peter hit just the right note through fashion and props, Alain's lighting and of course the incredible poses.
Looking back on the Prime Time soaps from the 80's and 90's, it is easy to think of them retrospectively as a bit campy. When I was a kid however, watching the wheeling and dealing on Dallas and the twists and turns on Knots Landing and Falcon Crest, the drama may have been high, but it was also incredibly compelling. Watching these shows with my parents, usually past my bedtime, took me to a world far from my own, one full of color and glamour and of dramatic lives being lived to the fullest.
Somehow I got this same feel from Alain's images of Peter. The poses, Peter's facial expressions and the knowing look in his memorizing blue eyes. Maybe also in part because of the the metallic material beneath Peter in some of the images, but I was taken back to the Harry Langdon images I so loved as a kid. Langdon shot some of television's most dramatic women and most celebrities during that time stood in front of his lens. Langdon's shoots were dramatic, distinct and tailored to bring out the personality of the subject and beautifully lit just as Alain has done with Peter here.
