09/10/2025
What would Ophelia do if she was born in the 21st century?
Would she really drift away heartbroken over Hamlet… or would she climb out of that stream, block his number, find a rebound with emotional availability, get a 9–5 job, and meet her girls for Sunday brunch?
In Millais’ painting Ophelia (1851–52), Ophelia, the tragic heroine from Shakespeare’s Hamlet — driven mad by grief after her father’s murder and Hamlet’s rejection — wanders into the forest singing old songs. As she walks along a riverbank, she slips into the water. She lies there, still singing, surrounded by wild blossoms. Slowly, the fabric of her dress soaks through, and she sinks beneath the surface.
I’ve been obsessed with this painting for years — that haunting calm between life and surrender — and always wanted to recreate it.
One day, hiking through the South Downs, I stumbled upon the perfect spot: a clear spring, shallow enough to lie in safely, green enough to feel like a dream, and (very importantly) close enough to a tearoom to warm up after.
Then came Megan. With her wild ginger hair and porcelain skin, she seemed to have just stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. We recreated Ophelia as closely as we could — and then imagined the next chapter.
Because maybe, just maybe, Ophelia doesn’t sink.
Maybe she gets up, wrings out her dress, and walks away — leaving a man’s portrait in the stream to sink, surrounded by blossoms.
🖼️ 1, 4 - My Ophelia
🖼️ 2 – Millais’ Ophelia
🖼️ 3 – Details from the original
🖼️ 5-7 – Our shoot, imagining the story
🖼️ 8 – Backstage
