In association with Project Educate I'd like to welcome you to Glamour Week here on deviantART. All week I'll be conducting a series of interviews with a few of the best Glamour photographers on deviantART. Yesterday we had the pleasure of kicking things off with Threelibras, today I'd like to introduce you to =DalaiHarma


1) First off introduce yourself? Who are you, where are you from? What are you wearing?

My name, believe it or not, is Harmony Nicholas, and I am a photographic artist living and working in Adelaide, South Australia, because New York is too damned expensive. This evening you find me in a pair of men’s pyjamas a la Target, and my fur coat, Trixie Fantastic... don’t look at me like that, I never said I was normal.



2) What first drew you to photography?

My Great Grandfather was a photographer, so it must have been in the blood. I used to travel a lot with my family when I was young, so I had early experience handling point & shoot automatic cameras for typical happy snap vacation photos. I never really pursued photography outside of documenting every day bits and pieces until I reached Art School and took it up as my Minor, and the rest as they say is history. Long story short, I went from being a Photorealist Painter to a Photographer almost overnight, and haven’t really looked back since. Turned out it was just easier to take the shot, than to try to paint it.



3) How would you describe your personal style? And when did you know you had one?

God, I always hate this part. I never know how to classify my work. Conceptual is too broad, Post Modern is too wanky. I usually tell people it’s somewhere along the lines of Rolling Stone meets Pink Floyd, which ultimately means nothing to them. Hyper-real kind of fits, Surreal at a pinch. Let’s just say that somewhere along the line my work has a thread that runs through it that, so much so that although not all the images are the same, you can always tell when they’re mine.
Hell, I don’t know, I just work here.



4) In your view, what makes a great glamorous photo?

Well I can’t put it down to specifics, but whenever I hear ‘glamour’ I always think of the ‘30s and ‘40s starlets of the black and white film era – Garbo, Bacall, Hayworth, etc. So in that respect you can’t go past the work of photographers like Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Horst P. Horst. They were glamour to a tee. And if you wanted a modern take, Ellen Von Unwerth and of course Helmut Newton. Simply put the man was amazing.



5) What do you look for in a model for your work?

I used to have a very specific idea – face wasn’t important, provided they had great hair and could fit into vintage sizes. Nowadays I use a broader variety of costumes and have a collection of wigs and accessories, so I’m not as limited as I used to be with who I shot.
Normally I will stumble across someone’s page on DA or Myspace and will see some characteristic in them that I can use, and will go from there. I have a few more people wanting to work with me nowadays than when I first started out, so I can be a bit more selective about who I shoot, but it always comes down to the idea behind the shot. If I have a specific look in mind for a shot, I will look for the model that best compliments that idea. If I can’t think of anything to do with them, I can’t shoot them. It’s that simple.



6) Describe a typical shoot for you. From concept on down

God, how much time do you have?
Concept is essential, as I mentioned before. I will write up a shot list so I don’t forget what I am meant to be shooting on the day. Then I’ll raid my costume/props collection for all the bits and pieces I’ll need – wigs, dresses, shoes, etc. Very rarely do I ask the model to bring costumes but sometimes it works out well when they do, especially if they hoard as much as I do!

Then I’ll pull out the artillery. On any given shoot I would use between 3 and 5 cameras, depending on what I’m after. Typically I use a Minolta 700si with a zoom lens, a Pentacon 6, a Sony Cybershot for digital backups. Recently I have been dabbling with a Canon 20D, which I love to bits, and sometimes Diana and the Polaroid Colorpack 80 come out to play, but only when I’m feeling frisky.

I’ll load up the car and jam on over to the model’s house/hotel, pick them up and force classic 80s rock upon them whilst I yell obscenities at passing motorists and talk them through the ideas as we drive to the first location. We’ll shoot the first idea and then do a costume change and head over to the next location, and so on and so forth. If the shoot is in the model’s home/hotel, then we stay there and explore the area and use whatever I can find. If it’s at my house, same deal...except they’ll be tormented by cats and even louder music.
Almost all my work is location based, so that can be tricky at times depending on the weather and the time of day we shoot and how that will impact on the final image, but by some small miracle I usually manage to pull it off.

I don’t use lights, I rarely use flash, and the hair and makeup is usually done by the model or in a drastic pinch, by me. I’ll spend most of my time asking the model to hold their pose as I switch from camera to camera, which is harder than it sounds. It’s never ‘lights camera action’ with my shoots, its more along the lines of me lying in the dirt trying to get the angle right, whilst somehow managing to hold a reflector, yelling at the model to stand still and to keep posing how I damn well tell them to.



7) Is there anyone that you wish to work with?

Lots of people. Some are famous, some are not, but above all I would love to go back to London and work in collaboration with Storm Thorgerson. The man is a genius and my own personal hero. Google him and you’ll understand.



8) I know for myself, music and my friends/lifestyle, movies are a big influence on my work, what influences you day to day? And does it creep into your work...

Hell yes. Everything influences me. I can be walking down the street and see something randomly and it will start a mental process that eventually tangents into an image.
Film, Art, Music and Literature – they’re all massive influences on my life as well as my work. Mostly though, it’s the little snippets of something seemingly insignificant that seem to spark the big ideas.



9) How did find deviantART, and why stay?

I found DA through a friend of mine, Brent Leideritz aka =mrgone, a fellow Adelaide-based photographer. He kept telling me to have a look at his new work, some of which were on this strange site with an oddly coloured layout and a terribly alternative name of ‘deviant art’. I looked around, laughed at the overt gothic/emo overtones and thought, what the hell, and signed up. That was almost 3 years ago now.

There have been times when I have considered leaving DA, mainly for personal reasons more than anything, but it has been very good to me on the whole. It has provided a solid sounding board for feedback and a large variety of models, as well as a handy online portfolio until such time as my website is up and running. Nowadays I look back and laugh at some of the things that have transpired as a direct result of my joining deviantART, but hey, the universe works in mysterious ways.



10) Any particular fav people on deviantART?

There are so many amazing artists on this site, far too many to list.
Two particular favourites that spring to mind are ~visceral and ~stuntkid. I have admired and been inspired by Caryn’s work for a long time and am lucky enough to own several prints of hers, and Jason - well, I just cannot get over how talented that boy is. He makes me want to take up painting again, which is saying a lot.
Oh and how can anyone go past Kris Wilson. Get me in a Cyanide and Happiness loop and I’ll be there for days. The cynicism is strong in this one.

If in doubt, I always say to people to look through my Favourites gallery. You will find some incredible people in there, I guarantee it.



11) What are your fav pieces of art on dA?

Jesus Frank, I’m a Libran. Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s effectively a death sentence asking a Libran to make a decision? Haha.
Ok, let’s see…
Alright, now bear with me, because this changes regularly. Some of my all-time favourite images have since been removed by the artists, so I’ll list a couple of classics and some more recent finds, otherwise we could be here all night…and this coat is getting warm.


1. NIN by `lithiumpicnic

[link]
Have you ever seen a band summed up so well in one single image? I think not.
One of the first deviations I saw in my early DA days, and it’s still one of my favourites.
VIVA LE PICNIC!
*ahem*


2. One Night, While On A Walk.... by ~visceral

[link]
As I’ve already said, Caryn’s work continues to amaze me, and this shot is no exception.
It’s like some sort of unnerving dream that you can’t wake from, and you’re pretty sure its about to turn into a nightmare… but you still want to climb inside and have a look around.


3. Unicorn Lady by ~stuntkid

[link]
Yes, I was young once too, and being a girl naturally I had a horse thing. Well, it was more a unicorn thing, but you get the idea. At one stage when I was about 12 years old, I actually thought I’d grow up to BE a unicorn, so when I saw this I nearly died. It is fantasy mixed with reality and a healthy does of Pierre & Gilles. I can’t really describe why I love it, just that I LOVE it.


4. What a Girl Wants by ~unclepatrick

[link]
Again, the Unicorn thing. The title says it all, and it’s so damn true it’s hilarious.


5. Red light district by *Falbanka

[link]
Anyone who knows my work knows that I seem to have an unhealthy obsession with feet and leg shots, specifically heels and stockings. I saw this piece by Falbanka and immediately wished I’d shot it, and usually that’s a pretty good indicator of how much I like the image. It is so simple and clean, and just look at those shoes! It’s true what they say, red does go faster.




12) What's your favourite image of your own
Oh HELL no. That’s even harder!
It changes constantly. One week I’ll love something, the next week I’ll hate it, but the one constant is that I always see the flaws behind each image so I am never 100% happy with a shot... but that’s just me, and part of the reason I keep shooting.
Lately I’ve become quite fond of a shot I did of Fleur aka *Halohid when she was in Adelaide a few months back, called ‘Blow’:
[link]


There is a warehouse in Adelaide that has been painted entirely in is this god-awful bubblegum pink colour, and I’d been wanting to shoot against it for ages, so when Fleur came over I threw her into one of my vintage gowns that closely matched the colour of the paint, popped the red wig on her head and told her to tart up her makeup. We drove down to the location – on the corner of a major intersection might I add – and set up around the shaded side of the building. With a balloon in place of bubblegum [as Fleur is unable to blow bubblegum bubbles and the alternative was just revolting] I posed her against the shaded wall and stood on the sidewalk and shot. What you see is diffused light bouncing off the brightly lit pavement around me, with the building as the backdrop and Fleur pulling her best cutesy bubble-blowing expression whilst morons in their cars zoom past behind us and hollered random obscenities.
It was shot on 3 different cameras, with no flash or lights or reflectors, and this was the best of the set, done on my horrid little Sony Cybershot. It was quick, simple, quirky and fun, not to mention the most exposure to pink I’ve ever endured in my entire life.



13) Where would you like to see deviantART head in terms of its Photography galleries?

I’d like to see there be a few more categories available, some of the definitions don’t quite cover shots and it’s sometimes hard to decide where to put an image. Even introducing the option of cross-categorizing an image: say, you have an emotive portrait that is also surreal. Might also be beneficial to get a few more directors on board to lighten the load and remove the rubbish – lord knows there is a lot of it.
And for once it would be nice to see something other than eyeliner clad teenagers, slashed wrists, rings on books, umbrellas in fields, infrared trees, pretty emo boys, balloons, gynecological labia close-ups and disgustingly cute kittens. Enough already.



14) What are you up to? Any projects planned?

The same thing I do every night – try to take over the world.


and here's just how she's gonna take over the world: