OLIVER OJEIL

BY ANISSASTAMBOULI

filmmaker, visual effects guru and photographer Hailing from Milan, Italy, the talented Ojeil has transitioned from one facet of the arts to another, giving rise to a colourful creative history leading up to his current fascination with portrait photography.

“I don’t know if I have a style in photography, I personally think I’m still trying to find my voice,” Ojeil confided to InSpades Magazine. We beg to differ. Featuring alluring subjects with intent and engaging eyes, Ojeil skilfully captures the female form with hints of Pre-Raphaelite and fashion photography styles. “I’m greatly influenced by the Renaissance masters,” said Ojeil, whose artistic mission is to “bring beauty into this ugly world.”

In “Girl With A Pearl Earring”, a stand-alone piece, Ojeil creates an immaculate homage to the seventeenth century painter Johannes Vermeer, whose masterpiece of the same title is an irrefutable classic.

With professional experience directing commercials for luxury brands like Porsche and Audi, as well as hair styling brands like Dabur Amla, Ojeil’s lush portraits are awash with glamour, subdued with perfect restraint.

Through the use of natural lighting and minimal edits for colour toning and retouching, Ojeil’s portraiture is both raw and dramatic in its visual capture of emotion.

“I love the whole process of creating a portrait,” said Ojeil. “It is somehow more personal and true. Meeting a person for the first time, going to a shoot while not knowing what to expect, and challenging yourself to outdo your last shoot.”

Although Ojeil has been working on a landscape photography book since 2011, his interest in portraiture began to develop two years ago and quickly took center-stage. This newfound passion grew from a “frustration with the advertising industry”, in which Ojeil works as a director. “The industry has recently become devoid of any creativity or passion,” he explained.

While Ojeil remains zealous for filmmaking, he found that photography was a “more affordable and quicker medium to tell stories and communicate ideas,” while also keeping his creative work “personal and subjective.”

When asked if his photographic style has influenced his directorial technique, Ojeil explained that the habit of transporting the viewer from the visible world into a different reality is still achieved in both art forms by way of “interpreting light and color tonality differently”.

Preferring anywhere “where there is a vibrant scene for artistic photography with great faces and super talented makeup and hair artists to work with”, Ojeil has immersed himself in Milan’s vivacious arts scene. With his sense of self-competition and constant evolution, if this is Ojeil “still trying to find his voice”, we cannot wait to witness his eventual aria.

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