“The grass is always greener on the other side.” For a brand new photo called A Secret Garden, Lebanese photographer Lara Zankoul constructed a beautiful installation inside a blue room that consisted of a floor filled with flowers. She enlisted the help of two friends, one who would be her model, Nour Saliba, and the other, Faysal Fakhany, who would assist her in art direction. Like many fascinating photos we’ve featured like this, it took them weeks of planning.
As Lara tells us, “We drove for two-and-a-half hours to my hometown in the south of Lebanon (Hasbaya) with huge flower sacs on our laps. The concept struck in my mind a month ago: A beautiful garden overtaking a blue room. Faysal, whose flower-filled Halloween costume was etched in my mind from a few months ago, was the perfect collaborator. I called him and we spent the last two weekends shopping for artificial flowers.
“Nour, the porcelain-skinned girl, started to get car sick as we reached my favorite old Narnian house. We spent two hours building that garden, amidst the beautiful sounds of Tracy Chapman and eclectic bands.
“This inner garden is a philosophical representation of the blooming spirit, of well-being. Be it a psychedelic hallucination in the mind of the character, or a symbolization of her sensuality, that garden was a temporary installation I immortalized with pixels.”
Lara shared with us some behind-the-scenes shots, which you can see below.
