Like Painting on Canvas: Poetic Pictures by Leopoldine


Here in Lomography, we keep encountering more and more natural talents for the photographic arts, as well as embodying our experimental analogue creed. Lomographer Leopoldine a.k.a. mademoiselleo is such an artist that paints with her camera and give people new sights and angles of objects and environments with her own colorful, surreal spin.

Credits: mademoiselleo

Leopoldine grew up around cameras. The first time she got her hands on one was when she was seven years old when she and her grandmother went on a boat to see dolphins. Leopoldine recalled the fond memory of wanting to take a photograph so bad for the first time:

“I literally begged her to let me take pictures. My moment came when two dolphins jumped right in front of me. Unfortunately, they weren’t close enough to have a result film. But I remember the rush, it was an incredible adrenaline rush!”

Leopoldine shared. A few years later, she started on her photography degree, even made the effort to flip her bedroom into a film lab. Leopoldine was already in a totally different game.

Credits: mademoiselleo

Leopoldine has a unique, colorful, and surreal way of seeing things through the lens, reflective of who she is, and how she wants to convey stories through light, hues, and shapes. She approaches her craft between keenness and playfulness, the photograph itself is akin to a puzzle with Leopoldine arranging and rearranging elements on the frame. This shows a lot in her multiple exposure compositions, color, and her clever use of bokeh.

The Lomographer is inspired by photographers such as Alessio Albi, Arnaud Ele, Camille Sanson, Jeremy Everett, Steven Pippin, Wolfgang Tillmans, Sofia Coppola, Marcel Veldman, Hugh Holland, Akatre, Ugur Basaran, Ieva Saudargaite, Maria Maglionico, Julia Römer, Laurent Castellani.

“I like to photograph things you couldn’t see with your bare eyes, and textures in general. I like to focus on only one subject, to have a purified composition. Just keep it simple and add a touch of fantasy to it. I really love saturated colors, but I don’t want the composition to be surcharged. So I organize to find the perfect balance between shapes and colors. This is part of my personality too, I like everything to be in order!”
Credits: mademoiselleo

Leopoldine is also into alternative photography, particularly cyanotypes as of the moment. She mentioned that one of the challenges of being naturally experimental is the quality control and effort matching the result of her experiments. Nonetheless, she believes that nothing is wasted so long as work is done out of love and passion. Being confident would help a lot of Lomographers to be more daring and bold with their photography.

“Do what you love. Despite everything. This is the most important. Those pictures are going to be memories of your life. It needs to be something you’re gonna recall as good. If you wanna go deeper, be curious, get inspired by other people's work, and never stop learning. Surround yourself with positive people who always push you. This advice is, for me, the key to a flourishing artist.“

Another thing Leopoldine to build a rapport with her partner – her camera.

“My next challenge will be to find my next partner. The body of my camera is dying because the plastic is getting too old. Never easy to replace your first love, but I try to see it as an opportunity to improve my gear!”
Credits: mademoiselleo

Earlier this year Leopoldine took a year off for traveling after finishing her studies, going to places outside of Europe. But the quarantine was announced the day she was supposed to book her flight. Lately, Leopoldine’s focusing on her digital artwork as the pandemic persists. “You adapt to make something good out of this chaos... besides, to see our world in so much pain, knowing there’s nothing we can do is really making me sad!”

She plans on finishing all her projects and works on her website. She’s also learning more about printing techniques before diving into portrait photography.


For more of Leopoldine’s work, visit her website and LomoHome.

written by cielsan on 2020-11-08

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