Photostory: The Angel’s New Paradise

Deon will be leaving Singapore in 2 weeks time. She will be studying music in Melbourne. Back in August 2008, I already did an indoor shoot with her and her harps, at her home.
https://musicphotolife.com/2008/08/d700-road-test-deon/

So on 2 Jan 2009, we went outdoors with her mini-harp and did the rest of the planned shoot.

The photostory is at http://chester.sg/photostory/deon-angel/

The idea of doing a story of an angel started when I brainstormed with Deon about doing an outdoor photoshoot with the harp. Then I decided to throw in the fantasy tale of an angel on Earth, since we often associate angels with harps. But I didn’t want the angel in my photoshoot to look like angel with wings and halo and harp. I have researched and found that biblical angels are not what we thought. I also tried to find if there are any fan fictions about an alternate angel origin, but couldn’t find any. So I decided to create my own angel origin and developed this photo story.

I am usually not a wordy person when it comes to photo stories, but I had to put more text for this one to explain my version of angel. Imagine the questions from viewers as they view my photostory: where are the angel’s wings and halo? What’s this angel doing on Earth? Why does this angel act like this?

Angels are a super-race that lived in a parallel dimension among the high altitudes. In the biblical context, angels play their roles as messengers.

Over the centuries, the angel population has grown and many has moved out of the Holy Kingdom to live secular lives. Just like any living species, angels evolve.

This is a story of a music angel named Noeding.

This photo story alone cannot completely explain the origin of this angel, so I have worked out some more materials for me to develop further photo stories. Basically, my version of angels live on sunlight and emotional love. Without sunlight, they become mortals and age. Without love, they enter a stage of metamorphosis and change into something of a negative nature. They possess super abilities but on Earth these abilities cannot be unleashed to their potential because they are further away from the sun than on their own land. One of the most common abilities is to levitate or fly. They do not need wings to fly, just like Superman. In my version, as explained in my photo story, Kryptonians (Superman’s race) evolved from this angel species. But Superman could fly on Earth because Kryptonians have evolved to perfection while my species of angels evolved in their own pace.

In my photostory, the angel’s dream was so powerful that she was transported to the place in her dreams. She can also communicate with living things, like trees. Different angels possess different abilities. And this is not another “Heros” spin-off. Through my new angel race, I want to conjure stories beyond the human boundaries, of events of fantasy nature (like talking to trees).

I was quite glad that there many interpretations of angels available. This site, for instance, overturns everything we thought we know about angels.
http://www.new-life.net/angel02.htm

There is actually a hidden meaning for naming the photostory “The Angel’s New Paradise”. In this angel’s viewpoint, Earth is a paradise, and is it that hard to imagine? Our world has green trees, blue waters, colourful flowers, melodious birds, majestic beasts, lovable pets, tasty poultry. And within the human race, we have hundreds of cultures, billions of people where everyone is a potential mate, millions of creations – books, music, photos, videos, paintings, software, architecture, etc.

But there is also the ugly side: of pollution, of diseases, of inter-racial disharmony, of deforestation, of over-industrialisation, of imbalanced ecology. My angel didn’t see these coming, and I’m sure she would be very depressed when all these start to overwhelm her.

If, after reading all these, you are inspired, or interested, to develop this new angel species, I’d like to hear from you. Be it, interested to model for my future stories, or interested to contribute ideas and mini-stories, or even to inform me that another human from another part of Earth has similar concept.

And oh, I have already decided on my next angel photostory theme. It’s about a runaway bride.