The One Who Fell From Grace With The Sea

• Prize
  Silver in People/Portrait
• Photographer
  David Degelin

The inspiration for the series 'The One Who Fell from Grace with the Sea' comes from the Yukio Mishima novel 'The Afternoon Towing', with themes alienation, gender roles, glory and honour. The background of the story is the sea and although it is a piece of art without calming shade, it inspired me to use water ripples and the white water (colored with milk powder) as a frame for a still life portrait series of the young Belgian woman Ornella Kabalole with Congolose roots.

I'm a photographer with a focus on portrait, street, and fine-art photography, and photography is my way of dealing with the world, people, stories, places, experiences. Photography is a therapeutic activity for me in a way, a survival strategy. I use light and shadow to capture what I feel, rather than what I see, and what I feel always takes precedence over what I see in what I do. I'm intrigued by the beauty of solitude, of people and places and in my work, this theme plays a dominant role.