Sois Belle 11.7

Look once—then look again. These luscious, surreal images from Photographer Annelie Vandendael challenge the unrealistic standards of perfection set by fashion photography, provoking playfulness rather than airbrushed beauty. With her Hasselblad camera, Vandendael glorifies the authenticity of female beauty through surreal compositions taken in analogue format. She’s titled her newest series of photographs Sois belle (be beautiful), a cheeky command to merge imaginatively with a larger than life environment — an environment that often includes improbable elements like pink flamingos and ice cream. Sois Belle describes the human being, and especially the women who are protagonists of her shots, not as an object to manipulate, but on the contrary as an integral part of nature.