Mystical and romantic, Patrick Meroth‘s ‘The Secret Garden’ takes the viewer into a secret and mysterious world. With airy, light styling by Bernadette Prechtl, garden nymph Emilia Lampe gives expression to the photographer’s inspiration.
You’ve been an assistant to a few renown photographers, and before that you did a photography apprenticeship. How does that serve you now?
From my point of view, an apprenticeship establishes the foundations for the experiences you gather as an assistant. Both stages were essential for my development. During the apprenticeship I learned the technical know-how, which was still old school back then – analogue. The time I spent as an assistant was very exciting: learning in person what’s needed to realise a successful production, how to deal with people on the set, with the weather, and to find solutions quickly.
The time with Enrique Badulescu represents one of the greatest experiences for me – on trips around the whole world, at the peak era of fashion photography, getting to know my dream profession – I’ll never forget it.
You live and work in Munich. Is that a strategically good place for a fashion photographer or do you plan to move elsewhere?
Munich – South Beach as I like to call it – might not, at a first glance, appear to be a fashion centre like Paris; even so, it is home to many internationally relevant fashion labels – in other words, potential clients.
The quality of life is known far and wide, and you can quickly get to places of inspiration – like Milan and Amsterdam, which I like a lot.
You photographed ‘The Secret Garden’ for the S magazine. What was your source of inspiration for it? What’s it about?
For me, photography is always about telling a story. Positively formulated, ‘The Secret Garden’ is a fictitious place for the soul – a secret place that everyone needs. It is reminiscent of both the children’s book with the same title, and the ‘hortus conclusus’, artistic paradise gardens in the Middle Ages. As chance would have it, the German Master School for Fashion in Munich, was hosting a fashion show with this theme at the same time.
I’m grateful that we were able to get the artistic director Roland Müller-Neumeister on board for our project, and that we were together able to choose clothing by some of his students. They were all one-of-a-kind pieces, sensitively conceived, sewn over weeks and embroidered by hand.
The pictures appear very light, mystical and soft. What effects did you use during the photo shoot and post-production to achieve this result?
The mystical and romantic feel of the images points toward the fact that these are images for the soul. The soft, silk dresses, together with the deliberate mist effect we used, underline this impression. To create the contrast between inner and outer, we used the wall, heaviness in the form of desaturation, and down-to-earth jackets and boots.
The lighting on the day of the shoot was good luck: there was an elastic interplay between sunbeams that made the roses glitter, and shadows.
The artificial mist, produced by a machine, transports the viewer through the individual pictures, and the soft look produced in post-production helps our eyes to waft away.
Where did you find the location for this project? Was there something there that particularly captured you?
The location needed to give a home to the images I had in my mind, be generous in size and also convey a feeling of intimacy. The Herzog Park in Regensburg offered all that! Already when we were location scouting, I knew that it was the perfect place, and I’m very grateful to the Regensburg Garden Authority for giving me a special permit.
You shot with the Leica S. Do you have anything particular to say about the camera in general and in relation to shooting on location?
Working on this production with a Leica S was a real experience. For me, and probably for most photographers, the name Leica has a special ring to it. I was convince by the handling and the photo feeling. I had already heard a lot of good stuff about the S, but it’s something else when you experience it for yourself. It fits comfortably in your hand and, for its size, it’s very light, which is, of course, very good when you have a long day shooting on location. The lenses and the sensor produce very natural, detailed colours and structures. It was a great combination for our project, because it captured perfectly the fine, silk materials, the transparency of the textiles, the colour of the skin as well as the structures.
What plans do you have with regard to your photography?
In the future I want to produce more projects focussing on beauty, fashion and video, and, if possible, organise another exhibition. The last one I had, titled ‘Edgy Silence’, was in Munich in 2015. I hope that personal and commercial projects will continue to challenge my creativity, that I can travel, and that sources of inspiration can influence my work, producing images that reveal my personal perception and unique style.
