"One Hundred Years of Solitude" Project

 I read “ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE” by G.G. Márquez for the first time in 2006.  

Already while reading the first page I knew it's gonna be one of my favorite books ever. It bought me with it's soup of very different things together: tragedy, absurd, deep philosophy, romance and adventure, just like in real life!   

In the process of reading I had those images in my head as illustrations and got the idea of this project. But back then I didn't have enough skills and knowledge about photography and Photoshop, I simply didn't know HOW would I make it. 

Finally I started in 2012. Took 95-97% of photos by myself, had to buy few on photo-stocks. Used all my friends and friends of friends to be my models for the characters. Used some luck and the chance to get to places and take photos while travelling to Italy and USA: the real size 16 century spanish galleon Santa-Maria (exactly like I needed) was just sitting on the Olentangy River in Columbus, OH, where we moved (what a coincidence!), or visited the marine museum in Venice (I used a photo from it for the skeleton of the same galleon on the Meme picture)... 

Anyway,  here is the result of my 2 years effort. 

GALLEON ."Before them, surrounded by ferns and palm trees, white and powdery in the silent morning light, was an enormous Spanish galleon. Tilted slightly to the starboard, it had hanging from its intact masts the dirty rags of its sails in the midst of its rigging, which was adorned with orchids. The hull, covered with an armor of petrified barnacles and soft moss, was firmly fastened into a surface of stones."

I chose some moments of the story which seemed the worth visualizing. 

 COLONEL AURELIANO. "In the center of the chalk circle that his aides would draw wherever he stopped, and which only he could enter, he would decide with brief orders that had no appeal the fate of the world."
 

Made composites (every photoshop file has approximately 100 layers...) 

CIRCUS. "He went from house to house dragging two metal ingots and everybody was amazed to see pots, pans, tongs, and braziers tumble down from their places and beams creak from the desperation of nails and screws trying to emerge."

Printed them on the paper 80 x 60 cm, framed in a glass and on smaller papers printed quotes, corresponding to those moments. 

INSOMNIA. "The sign that he hung on the neck of the cow was an exemplary proof of the way in which the inhabitants of Macondo were prepared to fight against loss of memory: "This is the cow. She must be milked every morning so that she will produce milk, and the milk must be boiled in order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk."
At the beginning of the road into the swamp they put up a sign that said "Macondo" and another larger one on the main street that said "God exists". "

JOSE ARCADIO BUENDIA. "Ten men were needed to get him down, fourteen to tie him up, twenty to drag him to the chestnut tree in the courtyard, where they left him tied up to the trunk."

JOSE ARCADIO. "His square shoulders barely fitted through the doorways. He was wearing a medal of Our Lady of Help around his bison neck, his arms and chest were completely covered with cryptic tattooing, and on his right wrist was the tight copper bracelet of the nińos-en-cruz amulet. ...sometimes he carried a deer on his shoulder and almost always a string of rabbits or wild ducks."

MELQUIADES. "He wore a large black hat that looked like a raven with widespread wings, and a velvet vest across which the patina of the centuries had skated. Melquiades was sitting against the metallic and quivering light from the window."
 

MEME. "Meme got into the train as if she were walking in her sleep, not even noticing the yellow butterflies that were still accompanying her. She did not look out of the window, not even when the burning dampness of the groves ended and the train went through a poppyladen plain where the carbonized skeleton of the Spanish galleon still sat..."

PETRA COTES. "At dawn Aureliano Segundo opened the door and saw the courtyard paved with rabbits, blue in the glow of dawn. Petra Cotes, dying with laughter, could not resist the temptation of teasing him.
- Those are the ones who were born last night, she said. "

REBECA. "Rebeca only liked to eat the damp earth of the courtyard and the cake of whitewash that she picked of the walls with her nails. It was obvious that her parents, or whoever had raised her, had scolded her for that habit because she did it secretively and with a feeling of guilt, trying to put away supplies so that she could eat when no one was looking."

REMEDIOS THE BEAUTY. "Amaranta noticed that Remedios the Beauty was covered all over by an intense paleness.
- Don't you feel well? - she asked her.
Remedios the Beauty, who was clutching the sheet by the other end, gave a pitying smile.
- Quite the opposite, she said, I never felt better."
 

Organized the exhibition in one of the Kiev's cafe's inviting all my friends.   

p.s. Jose Arcadio Buendia, the father of Buendia family (the crazy guy tied to the tree) is my dad :) It was fun to photograph him in a park with my mom's assistance. :) 

 

p.s. In the making...