The People of Light and Shadow: The Hunted Princess

The young princess’s hair was black as coal, her skin as white as snow, her lips red as the enchanted apple that her jealous stepmother had charmed to do away with the human girl who dared to bloom more beautiful than she.

“The Hunted Princess”

The Hunted Princess: Liz Falstreau

Actor/singer-songwriter Liz Falstreau portrays this version of the classic Snow White, “the Hunted Princess,” one of the most familiar characters of fairytale. Liz was a Distant Era client within the last year, when she hired us to photograph a branding session for her new album, Full Transformation.

The costume pieces were created by another Distant Era client, Erin Gallagher, who put together a look that communicated Snow White without copying the iconic Disney costume. I’m extremely grateful to Erin for lending her time and talent to this session. We’ll be seeing Erin herself debuting another of her awesome designs later on in this series.

There are many variants to Snow White beyond the tale by the Brothers Grimm and the familiar Disney film. It felt important to create an image based on the archetype rather than to attempt a cosplay portrait. This way, the viewer can imagine their own story about this character rather than have it telegraphed or prescribed via a costume associated with a very specific brand.

Here’s what Liz had to say about the character of Snow White and her choice to portray the Hunted Princess in The People of Light and Shadow:

I think people don’t give Snow White enough credit. She maintains her kindness and care through being hunted, and even through death. I think she represents the idea of being born royal. Not because of her father’s namesake, but because of the way she continues to carry herself after his death and in the face of cruelty. The internet likes to critique her joy of cleaning, when it was the only education afforded her, the only thing she was raised to believe she had to offer. She made the most of her surroundings by respecting the circumstances and adapting. Character like that doesn’t go unnoticed by a thoughtful public. Her resilience and hope in the darkest times is what makes her the purest form of human survival; it’s what makes her Snow White. She survives death, not by dominating and conquering, but by listening, caring, and adapting. Her dreams may seem simple, but they are hers, and she is hopeful to the end that they’ll come true. Not certain, but hopeful. I think that’s an important lesson. She is strong, but soft. Which is pretty punk rock. Kindness as an act of defiance.
Liz Falstreau on Snow White

Liz modeled a variety of looks for this image, but the featured image is from a sequence I paused on every time I reviewed the series. You can see the innocence of Snow White here, and her gentle, peaceful nature. She looks hopefully at the viewer (perhaps we are cast as her wicked stepmother in disguise) as she cradles the iconic apple in her hand. In Western culture, apples often symbolize the temptation for forbidden knowledge and/or loss of innocence; this tracks with Snow White, as the evil stepmother disguises herself as a peasant woman and tempts Snow White to eat the apple that finally “kills” her.

Photography

Shooting with Liz Falstreau is always wonderful, and we had a great time throughout the afternoon as we made this image. Here’s a peek behind the scenes—note the strips of black Cinefoil hanging from the ceiling to prevent hotspots of daylight from appearing on the background. Enormous thanks to Distant Era MVP Elizabeth for being the best assistant ever and for capturing the reality behind the magic in these.

We shot the portraits at f/8, ISO 100, 1/200 sec. For that final image and most of the selections, we used a large, gridded softbox for its gentle light, but we love the sculpted shadows of the small, round beauty dish and ended our shooting day with several portraits using that light. In editing, we pushed the background to cooler tones to complement the red of the apple and of Snow White’s lips contrasting against her pale neutral skin tone. In the end, some tiny flakes of snow were added, partly to provide one more hint as to the character’s identity but partly as a scenic element to isolate her more as she tries to survive on her own, away from home in a dangerous environment.

In our experimentation with the look and feel of the Hunted Princess, we added and subtracted costume elements provided by Erin Gallagher. We tried different lights and different props. One of my very favorite images in the series is the last image in the gallery below, where the Hunted Princess holds a crown while the shawl drapes from her arms almost like a royal garment; her expression here seems much more confident and majestic, the person that perhaps Snow White will become at the end of this ordeal when she has overcome her wicked stepmother and is restored to her royal station.

Story Inspirations, Observations, and Anecdotes: The Wicked Stepmother

I didn’t write much story text for this one; while there are many versions of Snow White, making up another one seemed counterproductive for the purposes of communicating this image. However, I read about several of the different versions of the tale that have appeared over the years, and I noticed on rereading the Brothers Grimm’s version that the active character in their story is the evil stepmother.

The stepmother appears to be the character driving the action of the Grimms’ story, the character with the problem and the desire: she wants to be the fairest in the land. It is her desire that we follow and her actions to achieve this goal. Through a series of trials (involving the repeated attempted murder of her stepdaughter), she attempts to overcome this problem. At the end of the story, she finally gets what she wants (Snow White is dead and the stepmother is the fairest), but this is foiled when Snow White reawakens. The stepmother doesn’t want to attend the wedding of Snow White and the prince, but she can’t resist; and for her trouble, her feet are placed in red-hot iron shoes, and she is forced to dance until she dies. And then the story ends. Its moral: don’t be a narcissist.

Finally, here is a selection of images from the session: