‘I wanted to show how colourful life can be’: Dikye Ariani’s best phone shot

‘Conceptual photography is just like making paintings,” Dikye Ariani says. “You come up with an idea in your imagination and then you work to bring your visualisation to life.” One morning in the rainy season of 2022, Ariani drove from her home in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta to neighbouring Bogor for an early shoot. Waiting for her at Lake Tamansari were the five women pictured, local talent hired to take part as models. For the next four hours, Ariani dressed the women, positioned them and various elements in the warm water, and climbed up and down a ladder with her phone. She took about 100 photographs from different angles.

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“In the centre you can see a very common boat called a perahu mayang, and on the water, lotus flowers and enormous lily pads,” Ariani says. “I chose a rainbow of colours for the clothing to bring vibrancy to the image, and each woman is wearing a traditional bamboo hat.”

Back home later that day, Ariani applied some minor edits to sharpen the image a little. Reflecting on the picture now, she says she is proud of what they created that day. “I wanted to show how colourful life can be, and I think I did that. I hope others looking at this image take a moment to appreciate the beauty of life.”