Origami Animals Come to Life in These Digital Portraits

LA-based French photographer Reine Paradis stages fantastical scenes in shocking color in her series Jungle. "The conception of a scene starts with a location that I discover and that inspires me, but it can also start with an object, a memory, a shadow, a specific lighting, a mood,” she tells The Creators Project. "Sometimes I visualize fragmented parts of a scene that will then merge together later; sometimes the scene appears clearly as a whole."

After conceiving of a tableau, Paradis makes painted sketches which she uses as her only reference for realizing her photos. "The pre-production is an important phase because it is during this period that I hand-make all the elements that will compose the scene; origami, the design of the accessories, the objects and clothing,” she writes. "I shoot the scene as closely as possible to my original vision.”

The series is shot across America, from Los Angeles to Palm Springs to New York, and features Paradis herself as the model. In post production she adjusts the colors to the intense blue and orange that mark the series. "I have always been very sensitive to the intensity and the effect that certain colors can have on me and have always been drawn to intense colors,” she says.

The effect of is something akin to a duotone fantasy, full of whimsical but starkly strange imagery. And the series is continuing— Paradis will begin shooting new images in the next few weeks. As she puts it, "Each scene is an adventure and a story to remember."

Reine Paradis’s photography will be on display at Paul Kopeikin Gallery in LA in June 2016. To learn more about her work, click here.

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