ugrandolini

Christine: my lioness model

I got in touch with Christine last February, a couple of weeks before leaving for Copenhagen to attend a workshop. Since the beginning of my path in photography, every time I travel, I try to organise some shootings with models who are living in the places I visit.

So, after posting a casting in a model site I got quite a few requests and started to do my selection. I couldn’t help but noticing some scars on the body of one of the models that applied, Christine, and I immediately started brainstorming about how to create some glamour images with her…

If you follow what I’m doing, you know about my “Outer & Inner Beauty” concept: to me, Christine was the perfect model to represent it. So I took the courage and asked her if she was ready to tell me her story and also to work with me.

She sensed my good will and immediately accepted to work together!

Here is a condensed version of her story for you and all the women that does not like themselves just because of minor physical ‘imperfections’ and for those who doesn’t like themselves because of their partners, or anyone else for that matter, that keep denigrating them for this or that reason. I know of many beautiful Angels out there that have gone ( or are going) through this kind of situations.

Back to Christine, it happened on June, 10th 2014. She was driving back home after leaving her grandma’s funeral with her parents and her sister in their car on a freeway close to Allershausen (north of Munich, Germany).

Their parents were on the front seat, Ursula (her sister) was behind her dad, who was driving the car and Christine was behind her mother, on the right back seat.

It was a sunny day and at a certain point Ursula was annoyed with the sun and asked Christine to exchange seats… so they did.

About ten minutes later, the car crashed into a truck that had suddenly stopped: dad died in the crash. As only the left side of the car was crashed, Christine’s mom and sister only suffered small injuries like scratches and a concussion.

A helicopter came to rescue Christine and the rest of the family to the closest hospital.

Christine suffered life-threatening lung and brain injuries -she even had to be revived three times that day – and after many hours of surgery Christine was in a coma for three weeks and had to remain in the hospital for three long months.

Doctors said that Christine probably couldn’t get trough… but they didn’t know that Christine was a lion: her soul was so strong and she had a lot of plans for her future and no intention at all not to comply with them!

So after three months, Christine left the hospital, slowly started to get back on her feet and now, after six years, she is living and following her dreams.

Christine is such a beauty; we connected so well during the shooting that It was sad having to come to the end that night (the day after I had to get up early for the workshop). However, we agreed to meet again in the future to create more images together.

Little we knew that after a couple of days the entire world will come to what we all now know.

I’m grateful I started this path in photography not only because of the joy in learning something new, but also because I get to know the story behind each of the women who are going to be part of the work, and that gives me the opportunity to grow a little bit more as a person mainly. And when you find your way with the camera, it also shows the world what moves your soul and who you are.

I cannot wait to organise another session with Christine and, I will definitely organize a session with Ursula as well some time in the future!

Are you curious to see what we will produce next?