Maria Heiss: Feminine Anarchy Disguised as a Papillon

Fashion and Portrait Photography by Maria Heiss

Melbourne based Fashion and Portrait photographer Maria Heiss offers a unique aesthetic and style through her photography. She studied Fashion Photography at the University of the Arts London and graduated with her BA (Hons). This 24-year old may be young in terms of fashion photographers but her ability to portray images that embody the imperfect perfection of fashion portraits shows wisdom beyond her years.

Heiss’ Passion Lies in Her Creativity

One aspect of Heiss’ photography that stands out and screams for attention is her keen eye for detail, with retouching skills that not only enhance the images but rather take them to another level of brilliance. Her editing and shooting skills by the fact that she has only been working in the industry for a mere 6 years.

With a client list second to none and sporting career projects that include shooting London Fashion Week as well as Russian Fashion Week, it is safe to say that she clearly has her best foot firmly planted in the correct doorway.

There the Uneasy Violets Lie…

Her latest series “There the Uneasy Violets Lie…” is an insight into the deepest recesses of this brilliant young photographer’s camera view mind – a view that opens up the chrysalis just moments before the butterfly emerges to give us a glimpse of a magical moment seconds before it occurs!

This is part of my photographic series of work as a visual acknowledgment of human consciousness as an insight to human existence and loneliness and its sense of isolation, alienation; the feeling, the meaning and dynamic of loneliness. I explored this complex psychological topic, which resulted in a series of images as a body of work on this theme through my eyes with implementations of my personal thoughts and experiences on it. My aim was to create a series of scenes, exploring different stages of the state of loneliness, which is a personal and critical reflection on the major society and the life of individuals, who appear to be different from others.
“There the Uneasy Violets Lie..” is the part, where the main character has two pathways to choose from: whether it will be their doom, by accepting the ideas of major society, their way of life, be like others, but to forget about your identity and to bury your soul; or reject the norms and standards of that life, and become an individual, your true self.