Ellen – June 2025

This photo series is inspired by the 2024 remake of Nosferatu, itself a reinterpretation of the silent horror classic Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922). Both versions share a haunting, Gothic tone that I aimed to capture and reinterpret through my own visual style. In creating this series, I drew heavily from the atmosphere of the original film, as well as the work of Daido Moriyama, known for his dark, grainy photographs that feel like fragmented memories. His approach helped guide the emotional tone of the images — evoking dread not just through subject matter, but through texture and light. To deepen the visual language, I also turned to German Romanticism, especially the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, including The Abbey in the Oakwood (1809–1810) and The Cemetery Entrance (1825). These works, with their stark compositions and meditations on mortality, helped shape the framing and mood. I also took inspiration from Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max’s The White Woman (1900), which added a surreal and supernatural influence to the aesthetic. As a result, this series explores supernatural despair and fear, using a blend of black and white imagery with limited use of colour to preserve the eerie stillness and emotional weight found in both the films and their artistic roots. The contrast and grain were carefully controlled to heighten the sense of unease, mirroring the themes of decay, isolation, and the unknown.