Miss Aniela: impeccable fashion and composition with a surrealist touch
Fashion photographer Miss Aniela creates magical, glamorous spaces and suspends them in memorable images.
It is undeniable that some of the greatest minds of the last generations have been co-opted and seduced by fashion and advertising. High art and aesthetics have merged with the beauty industry, and art with the market. A prime example of this is the work of self-taught photographer Natalie Dybisz, better known as ‘Miss Aniela’.
Despite her young age, London-based Miss Aniela has become a reference in fashion photography that flirts with fine art. The power of her images, heightened by the big budgets of major brands and the beauty of her models, achieves the perfect seduction of this kind of photography. Her work features impeccably decorated rooms which are subverted by surrealist details and arrested by the elegance of the oneiric aristocracy. Magic is elevated by means of the perfection of the models’ clothing and the opulence of the chambers––that which makes dreamy beings out of princesses.
In her latest production, Miss Aniela worked in the Chateau de Champlatreux, a historic castle on the outskirts of Paris, creating a delirious and lavish surrealist party. Dead and live animals, twilight and a subtle touch of fantasy punctuate libraries, paintings and 18th century-French-furniture. A zoo becomes a space that simultaneously merges with the imagination.
One of the greatest qualities of Miss Aniela is her ability to create ambiances often reminiscent of those in classic paintings. She cites her inspiration as coming directly from the Dutch masters of chiaroscuro, specifically from the great Caravaggio. “Whilst everyone around me talked gadgets and software and lighting, I just wanted to somehow capture the magical fascination I felt looking at the paintings,” she says.
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