Inspired by cinema and the theater, Dariane Sanche had the concept for this shoot in her head for about two years, starting when she found a floor lamp shaped like a mushroom online. “I saw the whole scenario that I wanted to create,” Sanche says. She’d call it “Lost in the Wonderland,” illustrating “the story of a young woman discovering an imaginary and magical world.”

For the next two years, she got other creatives on board for the shoot and began building out the scene. They created different sets, “including giant mushrooms that measured between 5 feet and 12 feet high,” she says.

For the image below, shot with a fog machine, Sanche came across the mystical lighting pattern by chance. “I was photographing this look with smoke, and at one point, I opened the window blinds,” she explains. “The combination of studio light with natural light and smoke created this magnificent lighting.”

(Shot on a Canon 5D MarkIV and 50mm f/1.4 lens at f/2.2, 1/160 sec. and ISO 800, using a fog machine, beige cotton-canvas background, 1000-watt Dracast continuous light panel at 3200k and two Broncolor Siros 800 lights—one with a 150cm Octabox and the other with a 75cm Octabox.)

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