Through the Lens of Myth

In Conversation with Zander Fieschko

We’re in the practice of curating weird art. We invite artists to tell stories that get to the root of the human condition and allow them the space to wander down the twisted, dark, and spooky path full of cryptids to get there. That art is often literature, but we also like to present visual art. The photographer behind our Winter 2025 Issue cover, Zander Fieschko, is a skilled visual storyteller. With a degree in cinematography and sociology, he has a unique perspective on how to tell stories that capture people’s lived experiences through photography. 

Zander first learned to develop film at an art camp in Pittsburgh, eventually moving to LA to pursue filmmaking. But he came to realize that he could still tell a story effectively with just a few people in an afternoon with photography. Starting with recreating his dreams, he eventually turned to using his skill of creating visuals from abstract ideas to tell other people’s stories.

When we first received Zander’s photography submission we were immediately drawn to the pagan iconography. This mythology is the backbone of what Zander describes as his client’s “personal mythology.” 

“Everyone’s life is their own myth,” Zander explains. “[It’s] the idea that a person is created by their experience, and every experience they have makes them into a new person, and the people we are today are based off of all the things we can remember—or don’t remember—happened to us.” 

What you remember, how that affects you—no matter what, that’s yours. Zander’s work allows collaborators to reclaim this history and integrate their personal mythology into their understanding of themselves.

The model in the photographs we published came to Zander with a need to reclaim herself, feeling like she had been “colonized” in her last relationship. 

“That can happen when things are forced on you, like religion or a value system … it feels like when people would build churches over existing sacred spaces,” Zander says. 

This photography shoot was born of an idea that buried under the church are the old gods, the old spirits. And they ask the question: When the church goes to ruins, what happens to what had been buried under it? Do they come back up? Are they liberated? And if so, what form do they take? What are they now? They have undoubtedly been transformed by that experience. Zander hopes that his

work encourages people to be inspired by their own stories and their own lives. 

“We are all living our legends and myths and [they’re] yours. You don’t have to be anything people tell you to be, because you’re not, you can’t, you can be yourself.” 

If we are living characters in our own stories, creating our own realities, then we can write our own character however we want––how strong we want to be, how smart we want to be, what we do with our lives. Knowing ourselves and our history helps us figure out that character development and who we want to become that’s still us. Because ultimately, “We can only be ourselves, and nothing but ourselves,” he concludes.

If you would like to see your own personal mythos immortalized, Zander would love to help visualize and capture that with you. Find him at Cloud Temple, his studio in Cypress Park, northeast LA. See more examples of his work on his website and book a session with him here.