An outtake from the Beautiful Savage editorial

You know you’re working with the right person when an image like this ends up on the cutting room floor.

This was shot during the Bowie-inspired editorial I did with Hannah Vandermolen for Beautiful Savage. The story pulled from the atmosphere of Love Is Lost — something spare, haunted, and unresolved. The moment before collapse. But in this frame, it cracked into something stranger. Fully still, fully unreal. The light sits on her skin like mercury. The mask turns her into an artifact — part alien, part sculpture, part machine, ot so much a portrait as an apparition.

That it didn’t make the final cut says more about how rich the session was than anything else. Hannah models — and models exceptionally — but she also reads the room, finds the tone, and builds something you didn’t see coming. It’s not about needing less direction, it’s about the kind of attention she brings. You stay tuned in and make sure the frame is ready when it happens.

Sometimes an image arrives already complete. And sometimes it doesn’t make the edit — but still holds its own, no context required.

Hannah Vandermolen by Nikola Tamindzic for Beautiful Savage magazine

Photographer: Nikola Tamindzic
Model: Hannah Vandermolen
Mask: Couture Mask

Art Director: Lexie Coon
Stylist: Valissa Yoe
Make-up: Kavita Kaul
Hair stylist: Niko Weddle
Fashion assistants: Mia Darrow Tarley & Aarron Ricks
Photo assistant: Monicka Patterson

Retouching: Eye Candy