"This is the fairy-land; O spite of spites!"

December 15, 2014 7:57 AM

British photographer Kirsty Mitchell's hauntingly beautiful photographs of a stylized fairy wonderland.
posted by Kitteh (9 comments total)

I could swear this was on here before, but she's added a bunch.

lady of the lake
posted by winna at 8:01 AM on December 15, 2014

This one in particular is eerily similar to how I've always imagined Spenser's "Bower of Bliss"...
Haunting and gorgeous and beautifully sinister.
posted by Dorinda at 8:22 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I like that these are beautiful and flowery and ethereal and yet still fit within my head canon of all fairies being the faeries from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
posted by maryr at 9:04 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh, so beautiful. And such a glorious tribute to her mother. The pictures are so stunning it's disarming to realise they're real places and people, and the work of remarkably talented artists rather than computer magic. Thanks so much for posting this. I'll be keeping an eye out for the book.
posted by billiebee at 9:25 AM on December 15, 2014

I'd love to see the process for these photographs. The color grading process alone would be fascinating.
posted by tunewell at 9:45 AM on December 15, 2014

I don't mean to disrespect these images, but am curious if there is any research on women making these sorts of images. There's a minor trend in young, white women presenting themselves (or others) as pale, ethereal interlopers (sometimes as fairies, sometimes as some other less surreal but not exactly human human-ish being) in woodland settings and I'm curious about what drives the work.

I just searched for "forest girl" on google and came up with this page. Not sure what the source of those images is, but many there fall into this genre. I see images in this sort lauded on flickr and other online photo places periodically, and images of this sort often show up whenever a local news station does a story about a young female photographer who's work has gone viral online.

I'm always curious about who makes what sort of photography and why (see "white guy photography") and I see the sorts of images in this FPP often enough that I've gotten curious.
posted by msbrauer at 10:17 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

msbrauer, it's not just white girls who are buying in to the "forest girl" theme. Mori Girls (森ガール) is a japanese fashion subculture that's basically the same thing. And I don't think it's primarily white girls because it only appeals to white girls, but because black women often aren't allowed to portray themselves as wispy, ethereal, soft in any way. But I can assure you, especially on tumblr (and other such places that amass large groups of POC women), that this trend has been picked up by girls of all sort of races
posted by FirstMateKate at 12:29 PM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

My favorite is the last one on page three--weirdly compelling.

And the gal on your last link FMKate, is lovely.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:28 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

This link explains how she made the "paper cut" galleons for the Queen's Armada (they're actually steel). She also explains the process for making the costume-there are two Balinese shadow puppets incorporated into the skirt. Gorgeous!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:44 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]