Enchantments like Spices Embalming the Air by Adarsha Benjamin

Enchantments Like Spices Embalming the Air is an editorial photographed by Adarsha Benjamin featuring We Are Handsome's 2013 Enchanted Collection. Starring Breanna Box and Nana Agyapong. Make up by Bethany McCarty.  

Breanna Wears The Potion Corset Bikini

Breanna (right) wears the Guardian Corset Bikini 

[Wait In Vain] by Adarsha Benjamin

Wait In Vain is a new series by photographer Adarsha Benjamin shot in the Bowery Hotel in New York that explores the loneliness and longing of waiting. Starring artist and actress Nina Ljeti, Annakim Violetteโ€“daughter of Tom Petty and talented artist in her own right, and make-up artist Jordan Bree Long this  series is an introspective view of solitude, femininity, strength and beauty. Set in informal and natural lighting, Benjamin's subject inhabit the hotel room's walls like beautiful and romantic ghosts. 

All apparel provided by Condor

Munch Ado About Nothing

Edvard Munch (pronounced Moonk) is best known for The Scream โ€“ the painting itself is an expressionistic exclamation point marking an emotional era in art. After walking through the recent Munch exhibit at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Scream seemed to me to be the culmination of a life's work; an exasperated attempt to express the entirety of life's frustrations and anxiety. The exhibition portrayed the work of a man gripped with the beauty and fatality of every moment. Images of vampires, sick women, and the famous painting entitled "two lonely ones" standing by the water's edge (pictured below).

Munch was also obsessed with self-portrait photographs. I was overcome with a sense of earnest loneliness walking past his 4 x 6 washed out photos of Munch in bed, or gazing sternly out the window, or of his own profile. Was he trying to see if others' saw his paintings like he saw them: full of color, visceral objects in constant motion, jumping off the frame, still for a moment, and then gone?

He seemed to be overwhelmed with the beauty and solitude in life โ€“ using color and exaggerated reference points to impose a sense of urgency, of tragedy and stillness at the same time. Figures with faces stand out in great detail โ€“ serving as the proverbial punctuation marks, while the supporting roles stand as auxiliary auras โ€“ holding still in space. Munch instills the unbelievable power to feel within one figure the emotion of the entire room โ€“ with empathy to the all-to-common human experience of standing alone in a room and with many.

Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye just concluded at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, but will resume at the Tate Modern in London this summerfrom June 28 to October 14, and in the meantime Edvard Munch's Masterpieces is on view now until May at the Munch Museet in Oslo, Norway which houses a majority of his works including 1,100 paintings, 4,500 drawings and 18,000 prints. Text by Angelina Dreem for Pas Un Autre. 

Photo by Angelina Dreem

September: RENO โ€“ The Biggest Little City In The World

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part nine: September: Reno โ€“ The Biggest Little City in the World. 

July: Here, There, and Everywhere

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part seven: July: Here, There, Everywhere. Photographs from Venice, Paris, and New York with a smattering  of self portraits and a visit to Hebrew summer school.

June: Lost Weekends and Love At First Sight

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part six: June: Lost Weekends and Love At First Sight. Take a trip to Brooklyn to see the So So Glos, who we featured in the first issue of Autre, and then to the Berkshires โ€“ North Adams, Massachusetts โ€“ where Wilco curated the Solid Sound Festival at an old electrical sprocket factory.

May: The Month of Solitary Sunshine / Summer is Almost Here

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part five: May: The Month of Solitary Sunshine / Summer is Almost Here. This time Adarsha takes us to New York City and Coney Island.

March : Rebel Walk โ€“ Los Angeles, CA

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part three: March : Rebel Walk โ€“ Los Angeles, CA which includes behind the scenes photographs of Aaron Young's contribution to James Franco's Rebel where a replica of the car the killed James Dean was dropped from an 80 foot crane in a ditch and motorcycles were crashed along a lonely stretch of highway.

February : Nostalgia for the Light โ€“ Los Angeles, CA

Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part two: February: Nostalgia for the Light โ€“ Los Angeles, CA. "I am a February baby. The month of my birth. The month of my new born existence; every year. Its my sacred time of unraveling and unveiling. I did't take a lot of photos that month, just shots of people and the streets of LA on black & white. I listened to this song every day."

January: The Fool of Illusion โ€“ BIG SUR

As the end of the year nears we'll all undoubtably be taking a look back on our lives during last twelve months. Luckily, photographer and Autre creative director Adarsha Benjamin has visual documentation. During the next twelve days we'll be rolling a out a series, a retrospective of sorts, of photographs by Adarsha Benjamin and a specially selected song for each month of her life in 2011. Presenting a year in the life of Adarsha Benjamin, part one: January 2011: The Fool of Illusion โ€“ BIG SUR.