Australian artist Jane Long’s Dancing with Costică series is inspired by the works of Romanian war photographer Costică Acsinte (or Axinte). Long was searching for photos to practice her retouching skills on and discovered an online archive of Acsinte’s images taken during the 1930s and ‘40s. “I will probably never know the real stories of these people but in my mind they became characters in tales of my own invention,” Long said of the work. The artist created an otherworldly landscape for the figures in Acsinte’s images, lending a surreal and dreamlike quality to the portraits. See the before and after, below.
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long
Image credit: Jane Long