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How do people imagine sins and virtues? What are, to them, good and evil? What angels live in their souls, and what demons seize them?

This project is an attempt to give “visual” answers to these questions. Each of my seven models, through different facial expressions and gestures, tries to express her – or his - understanding of seven deadly sins and, consequently, virtues. As for me, I did my best to capture their ideas and communicate them to you, my dear audience, by means of photography.

When shooting, I was not only (and not so much) concerned with the quality of the models' “acting” and the accuracy of the images created by them, but also with the aspects of their own characters. So, I think, these photos appear to be not only the "portraits" of ideas and emotions, but the portraits of personalities as well.

Endegor

Seven sins - seven virtues

The canonical list of seven deadly sins was made up in the 6th century by Pope Gregory the Great and became acknowledged thanks to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century), a great Catholic philosopher and theologian. St. Thomas elaborated the concept of heavenly virtues, opposite to deadly sins.

Christianity defines deadly sins as sins leading to the death of the soul. While most people mistakenly believe that this term refers to the physical death, it is really all about the spiritual one.

Gregory the Great put the sins in order depending on their measure of opposition to love: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Acedia, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust; this is the order Purgatory is set up in, in Dante's “Divine Comedy”. Classifications made in accordance with the severity of this or that sin became more widespread; here, the sins are matched with the virtues: Pride – Humility, Avarice – Generosity, Lust – Chastity, Envy – Charity, Gluttony – Temperance, Wrath – Kindness, and Acedia – Faith.