Rituals in the Ordinary
The Art of Collaboration Between Photographer and Costume Designer
A meeting of two worlds
This series began as a simple idea — to bring beauty into places where it wasn’t expected. It grew into Rituals in the Ordinary, a collaborative exploration between photographer and costume designer, blending two creative languages: light and fabric, gesture and form.
At the heart of the project was a shared curiosity — what happens when you take something handcrafted, ceremonial, and full of memory, and place it inside the rhythm of modern life? A supermarket aisle, a playground, or a grey courtyard can suddenly become a stage, revealing the poetry that exists quietly around us every day.
The language of costume
The costumes were designed as hybrid forms — rooted in tradition but detached from any specific culture or era. Layered, textured, and built to move, they reference rituals of care and celebration: the act of dressing not for display, but for meaning.
Each garment was handmade with a sense of intention and reverence. Making them was a deeply personal process — part meditation, part storytelling. Every stitch became a way to reconnect with something ancient and slow, in contrast with the hurried pace of the world outside.
What costume-making means to me
Costume-making, for me, is about identity and transformation. It’s a language that allows emotion to become tangible — turning feelings into fabric and memories into structure. It offers the wearer a temporary rebirth, a moment of stepping into another version of themselves.
In this project, the clothes became vessels for that transformation. They carried fragments of another time and space, giving the models a sense of quiet presence — as if they were inhabiting both the real and the imagined at once.
The photographer’s lens
The photographer’s approach grounded the work in realism. The camera did not romanticise or idealise — it observed. It found beauty in stillness, in the interplay of light and fabric, in moments when the characters seemed to drift between worlds.
Each frame became a conversation between artifice and authenticity, between the intention of the costume and the rawness of the environment. The result is a cinematic tension — a sense that something extraordinary is unfolding in the most ordinary of places.
More pictures on @anj.photo Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/p/DQriupVjY2W/
A dialogue between worlds
Rituals in the Ordinary is ultimately a study in collaboration — between people, between mediums, between the sacred and the everyday. It celebrates the space where craft meets image, and where art emerges from shared intuition.
It’s a reminder that creativity doesn’t need to shout to be seen. Even the most familiar corners can become places of reflection and quiet wonder, if we only take the time to look closely.
A Special Mention
I’m very excited to be collaborating with and following the work of photographer Andrzej Szymanski, who has just embarked on his artistic journey with the photographic machine medium.
Andrzej’s eye is fresh and intuitive; his images bring a quiet rigor to everyday spaces, much like the direction of this series. He’s exploring how light, texture and gesture can reveal unseen emotional layers.
I believe this is just the start of something significant — one to watch. If you’re interested in photography that straddles the edge of documentary and dream, I’d strongly encourage you to follow him and witness the unfolding of his creative voice.
Follow @anj.photo on Instagram.
