Dreams of flying by German photographer Jan von Holleben is a unique series that visualizes the dreams of children.
Interestingly enough the inspiration for the project was a counter point to how children are treated in modern photography. “The inspiration came from the insufficient and somehow bad representation of childhood through the entire history of photography, on which I spent a lot of research time during my dissertation, when studying theory of photography at university. There was the plan to fuse my neighbors’ children experience with their own childhood and all their energies and visions with my nostalgic and quite creative memories of that very special time in life, when nearly anything is possible – or at least seems possible. Photography was chosen to be the appropriate medium to do so”
I was keen to learn how the pictures were taken and Jan explains: “The solution to put things on the ground and to change perspective by means of ladders, car roofs or 2nd story windows came by default as I needed to elevate the kids pretty soon into some tableau like illustrations of our joint photo ideas.”
While this may seem like the easy-to-implement idea it was not the first one that Jan tried: “We initially had tried to make kids fly or ride a dog by hanging them from cranes or by digital retouching work, but none of the techniques seemed respectful and honest enough for what we had in mind. So I settled on the ground with all the production and we felt very successful and pleased with the outcome”
Here is a look into how some of the photos were taken:
If you were wondering how this operation looks from behind the scenes, there is a video revealing of the mystery 🙂
Here are some more great samples of Jan’s work
For more of this great stuff visit the Dreams of Flying project page. (and for a completely different themed sharing a similar production see the 2D Hong-Kong computer game shoot we shared earlier this month)
[dreams of flying by Jan von Holleben ]
