We have nearly come to the end of our Auxientia steampunk fantasy daguerreotype series. In past weeks on The All Worlds Traveller, we’ve looked at daguerreotype-style portraits from the Auxientia steampunk fantasy role-playing game. (For those just joining, Auxientia is a live action role-playing game co-created by Nathan Pease, Hilary Dirks Norton, and Steve Townshend in 2019, with events in 2022 and 2023.) So far, our series has included Officer Prescott (Deana Vazquez), Robert Irons (John Kidd), and Maren Tinker (Meredith White). This week, we look at portraits of Simona Katsman as her character Vyara Kayda Sudhāra and the way the light tells a story.
Vyara comes from the Bāhira faction of Auxientia. Once a mighty empire that ruled the skies from the backs of wyverns and built cities atop rock columns that towered into the sky, after the decline of their empire, the Bāhira people returned to a more pastoral lifestyle among the hills and rivers of the Mutu Valley. Bāhira still revere the wyverns that they once mastered, though they have mostly lost the connection with the beasts they once had. Protectors of the valley’s natural “lumenstone” resources, the Bāhira often act as the conscience of Auxientia’s people.
Storytellers and wanderers, Bāhira know all the roads and hidden places in the valley, and they can predict the wind and weather. The valley’s longest current residents (beside the wyverns), they have access to some of the ancient knowledge of their people such as may yet exist in the crumbling ruins of the old Bāhira rock column cities in the sky. Therefore, when a Bāhira speaks, Auxientia listens.
Photography: Light and Shadow
This year, Simona returned to Auxientia for a killer portrait session in which we had some great moody lighting that alternated between areas of highlight and shadow. Simona planned to present her character differently this year, removing the turban that was her character’s hallmark in the first story. Therefore, Simona presented two sides of Vyara in the portraits—one with the turban of her past life and one with the book and her long hair flowing behind her.
All of Simona’s portraits this year looked like classical paintings with chiaroscuro lighting. I wasn’t changing the light drastically from subject to subject, so some of this had to do with the position of the light and Simona’s pose relative to that light. For example, in the following image you can see that she’s turned slightly away from the light, which is illuminating one side of her and then gently raking over Simona’s opposite side, creating the Rembrandt triangle of light beneath her eye. In the other image, Simona faces the light directly, holding the book and looking directly up into a light that fully illuminates her face.
…She’s really struggling with her identity and the two pictures represent that. There’s the hopeful and naive side fighting with her cynical and angry side.
Simona on Vyara
The light tells a story: in the first portrait, Vyara wears a turban and clutches a knife what she turns from the light, her body cloaked in shadow. In the second, her hair flows free as she opens a book and opens her face to the light. Thus, the images that Simona chose illustrate the journey of her character from the first story to the second.
The first picture from last year [Vyara 2022] is her being extremely certain of who she is and what she’s about, but the last two are proof that she doesn’t know anything but what she feels and what she’s pulled towards. So the lighting reflects that.
Simona on Vyara
The bottle she’s holding is her holding on to her faith that she’s on the right path, but she’s stubbornly clutching it because of her helplessness in the face of growing unrest and evil. Her life has been upended and she’s trying her best to keep faith with who she loves and what she loves. Her growing love and respect for the wyverns is keeping her stable.
The two recent pictures reflect that struggle and hope.
Simona on Vyara
It was a great pleasure making portraits with Simona again. I have enjoyed watching her character change and grow from episode to episode, and I am grateful to Simona for the opportunity to help chronicle Vyara’s journey. (Daguerreotype textures come from Chris Spooner.)
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