Modern Femme Fatales

Photos by Paris Zarcilla and Styling By Lily Radfar     

Today we we talk to Paris Zarcilla about a project she shot called Modern Femme Fatales”

“Since deciding to dedicate myself to film directing, I hadn’t consciously gone out to take photos in over a year and when an opportunity arose to help a friend (Lily) with her MA project on Modern Femme Fatales I jumped at the chance.

“I loved her idea of bringing back the sophistication of the 40s and 50s and trying to capture the seductive prowess these women had (and still have). We discussed our views and ideas on the subject and had completely the same vision in mind.

“To me femme fatales, are complex characters made up a multitude of emotional elements designed to confuse and deceive, and so it really lent itself to experiment and exploit these themes. But that’s obvious.

“We wanted to capture the moments your not used to seeing, the split second of vulnerability before she puts on her deadly facade and the micro emotions of fear in the unknown,the photos aim to purposefully sit unbalanced to its viewers in hopes of showing them a wilted innocence cloaked in the complexity and mystery of the Femme Fatale.

“We shot in an over crowded art studio with very limited amount of space, literally no more than about two meters. It was a largely experimental shoot, trying to find ways to cover up the background so we used plastic crystals from an Ikea lamp to help refract the light and images.

“The results were amazing and really helped with the mood of the photos. I used Lily’s Nikon D300 with a Nikkon 50mm and a standard kit lens.

“All the effects you see in the photos are all in-camera effects. Photoshop was used to push and pull the image about and exaggerate colors where needed.
We printed them on Hahnemuhle Photorag purely for aesthetic reasons, in particular its matt finish which really helped bring the photos to life.

“I’ve always loved photography but my profession is in directing music videos so coming back to photography was a real pleasure. It’s certainly jump started my hunger to take pictures again and I’ll certainly embark on more photography projects in the future.”

Interested to see more work of Paris visit her on suddenblack.com.