CHRISTINA WASCHKIES                  aka. ANTONIA MONTANA

My fashion work is based on autobiographical experiences, sometimes without me knowing the profound reason behind. It points an arrow at my own persona and lifestyle. My own life is reflected in a materialistic set up, but I have invented my Alter Ego 'Antonia Montana' to keep myself from getting too personal as I hope for my work to speak universally. Exploring different methods and processes to achieve certain rawness forms a large part of my practice; I see this as a way of pushing the typical boundaries of fashion photography, but also each layer or process adds a certain kind of protection to the subject, a disguise for me to speak about myself without giving away too much. I believe there is a deeper existence of artistic content in a standard 35mm photograph by using my own techniques in the darkroom instead of the obvious use of digital manipulation.