Fragrance of a Memory

Andrea Helander Kramešová was a principal dancer at the Czech National Ballet, and is now living in Stockholm and teaching at the Royal Swedish Ballet School. This past Saturday we headed south to an abandoned concrete factory to do a photoshoot. Our plan was to combine the elegant and refined motions of a ballet dancer with the industrial roughness of the derelict building.

We could have had better luck with the weather, and on the morning of the photoshoot it rained. The last bit of our journey the skies really opened up and by the time we stepped out of the car it was pouring down. We quickly hurried to the factory building to take shelter under the roof. Some of the rain water dripped from the ceiling and formed a puddle on the floor, which created a reflective surface that we later used in some of the photos. So in some sense we were lucky as we could not have created some of these photos without the rain.

It was really fun to photograph with Andrea, she had great energy and creativity as you can see in the photos below. Here are some of our favourite photos.

I did not stop to take a photo of the building on the way there, as it was raining very heavily. This photo is instead taken when we were heading away, but I thought it could be nice to lead the blog post with an overview photo of the building.
Andrea Helander Kramešová. One of the old walls had been covered with windows that were now gone, but the opening let in lots of light creating a beautifully lit scene.
Andrea Helander Kramešová
Andrea Helander Kramešová. Andrea had brought this amazing white skirt that we experimented with.

Fragrance of memories… For me this fun photo session was so interesting…. Since I’m no longer a professional ballerina, it was like a dream stepping back and trying to remember how it used be four years ago. Being on stage, being in front of an audience. Once upon a time I was at the center of our little universe and this photo session was for me about remembering what once upon a time I could do, what I lived for. Indeed it challenged me both mentally and physically, but It was a beautiful experience.

Andrea
Andrea Helander Kramešová
Andrea Helander Kramešová
Andrea Helander Kramešová. She was completely fearless, climbing and jumping.
Andrea Helander Kramešová
Andrea Helander Kramešová. Making the most of the reflection in the water puddle.

There was a stockpile of logs carefully placed on a nearby field, so we headed there after we had finished in the factory. The logs provided a quite interesting and repeating backdrop for Andrea to work with.

Andrea Helander Kramešová. Andrea had spotted these piles of logs, so we took the opportunity to get a few photos there also.
Andrea Helander Kramešová
Andrea Helander Kramešová. We passed this yellow field on the way back and jumped out of the car to get a few quick photos.

A short little behind the scenes video

Many thanks to Andrea for a really fun photoshoot!

Instagram: Andrea, Johannes

— Johannes

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