Hide and Seek has a fantastical feel, the photographs drenched in inky blacks. In one image, friends pose within the hollows of a 650-year-old oak tree, safely cocooned by its vast curves. Galandina plans many of her compositions using pencil drawings, her subjects’ bodies seemingly at one with nature, ebbing and following the wooded arcs that frame them. She cites her background in fashion photography and ballet as a natural influence on the roles her subjects take on.
One photograph references Hamlet’s Ophelia, and John Everett Millais’ 19th-century painting of the same name. Galandina’s former partner takes on the role, lying semisubmerged in water, surrounded by plant life. “Growing up, I was taught to look at images in a very classical way,” she says. “Ophelia was always a symbol of the woman, quite melancholic and powerless. But as you age, you interpret works of art differently, so I have tried to reunderstand it.”