I have been deeply inspired by the work of Bill Gekas (a multi-awarded and published portrait photographer), particularly the photographs that he took of his daughter which are reminiscent of renaissance period portraits. I wanted to try out something similar, but unlike him, I do this only as a hobby, with limited time and resources available to me.

I wanted to use Martin Johnson Heade’s brilliantly colored species of passion flower in the jungle setting so I used those two elements from the painting and came up with my own version of the backdrop for the photograph.