How does one photograph a thought? Or that a person gets a realization? Because that was the task at hand some weeks ago when I photographed at The Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles. That is where the celebrities do Scientology, but as we all see plenty of celebrities in the magazines, let me instead show some images from the place

	Atmosphere from the studies

The place is a religious retreat, which for some rings familiar, but in other cultures (such as my fellow Danes) makes no meaning. We simply don't have that in our culture, except for a monastery or our Folk High Schools. A religious retreat is where a person for a period can withdraws to a quiet or secluded place to study and develop spiritually.

The image above is a good illustration, if I'm allowed to say so myself. I asked my six year old daughter what the image illustrated, and she said "it's a thought." Frankly, I was proud both that she could tell and that I could make a photo of it.

The woman in the image is receiving spiritual counseling: A trained auditor ("one who listens") ask questions to a person and listens so as to guide that person to look at and get realizations about life and the things preventing them from being themselves. The purpose is to free people.

Part of the religious retreat is also that one live and study in a historical building in Los Angeles, the Chateau Elysée, which was is build in 1920 as a French chateau with beautiful restored gardens and fountains.

	Atmosphere from the hotel

A challenge one normally don't consider when you work across the Atlantic Ocean, is that the Americans have a different idea of how much people should smile in an image, than for example the Europeans. To us Europeans the successful smiling executive in a business magazine is perceived as fake and over the top. In fact it's only within the medical advertising that the American smile has been generally accepted in Europe. In the rest of our visual perception, the Swedes look worried (and have to), the Norwegian a bit more free, and only the German grandparents smiles more than the Americans.

As a Danish photographer there is almost a mission in this: It has to look natural and honest without making the Americans into "concerned Swedes."

Another thing is the colors where American reproduction of colors is usually warm where the Europeans prefer cooler colors, and the Scandinavians really cool colors. So the colors have to be natural, yet to the warm side.

- Thorsten Overgaard

 

You can see more images from the gardens and the building here (though not updated yet with my images)