The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Wednesday November 16th — —

“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Wednesday November 16th — —

I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Wednesday November 16th — —

Sophie Tajan

After last weekend’s highly anticipated (finally!) launch of Amsterdam-based perfume house Abel’s new five piece vita odor collection and the accompanying official presentation of the redefined strategy, repositioning of the brand and completely restyled identity, which we worked on over the course of the last twelve months (everything on that later this week) — we first want to shed some well deserved light on the very talented and very lovely Paris-based Sophie Tajan, who was responsible for the photography in the project.

We first encountered her work while researching what direction the visual language for Abel should move towards, in order to distinctively communicate on more than one level what the 100% natural fragrances stand for. The fit with Tajan’s artistic vision felt instantly perfect. With a portfolio consisting of part immaculate still life, part abstract documentary and part fashion photography: Tajan succeeds in all three areas. She creates captivating photographs throughout, photographing in natural light, creating imagery in a soft muted color palette and exciting shades of black, gray and white. Particularly her still life experimentations with light, distortions and reflections grabbed our attention and made her the undisputed perfect collaborator for what were trying to create. Looking back today, we can only conclude how happy we are with the outcome and look forward to see what’s next for the greatly talented Sophie.

See all of Sophie’s work for Abel on their new website.

Having grown up in the south west French countryside, where she picked up photography by herself, it must be this sunny part of France where very likely also the roots grew for her distinct sensibility to get the best out of natural light. After graduating in Paris, where she continues to be based since, Sophie has been building her portfolio with clear focus, amongst others by creating four editions of a publication by the name of Sucre Paper, together with Copenhagen-based photographer Angela Blumen. Next to her free projects, exploring the scope of fashion photography and experimenting with still life, she also works on diverse commissions and on a regular basis for impressive names like The New York Times’ T Magazine and Wallpaper* magazine.

Our collaboration started just before Sophie was traveling through California where part of the work for Abel was shot, after which two sessions in a studio in Paris followed. A combination of Californian nature’s muted color palette to represent the colors given to the five different fragrances, almost like the spectrum one encounters in different stages of the day, combined with her signature exquisite eye for lighting and reflections in the studio shots — the images translate the exciting beauty of nature and the intrinsic grace of natural light perfectly, representing the kind of sincere, nature-based luxury the fragrances and Abel as a brand stand for.

Make sure to follow Sophie on Tumblr and Instagram for daily and weekly updates.

For all information and more work by Sophie see here

For the photography created for Abel, step into the exciting new online environment of the perfume house here