Maetel from Galaxy Express 999 is a character I've always felt belongs naturally within photographic storytelling. Created by Leiji Matsumoto in his landmark 1977 manga and celebrated in its 1979 anime adaptation, she is an enigmatic companion - always dressed in a floor-length black coat and wide-brimmed hat - who carries deep secrets about her own nature, giving her a quiet sadness that permeates everything around her. There is something timeless and almost unreachable about her presence - calm, elegant, and slightly melancholic, as if she exists partly in the world and partly outside of it. When I photograph Maetel, I'm always trying to capture that sense of quiet distance, where beauty and mystery coexist without ever fully resolving into explanation.
For this shoot, I built the concept around the idea of "travel between moments." Rather than focusing on a single fixed setting, I wanted each image to feel like a stop along an endless journey. We explored environments that suggested transition and movement - train platforms, empty corridors, wide open landscapes, and minimal architectural spaces that could feel both futuristic and nostalgic depending on how they were framed. The intention was to echo the feeling of traveling through time, memory, and space without ever arriving at a final destination.
Lighting was treated with a soft, cinematic restraint. I used cool, diffused sources to create a gentle glow around the subject, often allowing the background to fade into atmospheric depth rather than detail. In some frames, I introduced subtle haze to enhance the feeling of distance and separation, as if Maetel is always just slightly out of reach. The color palette leaned toward muted blues, soft whites, and deep shadow tones, reinforcing the quiet, reflective mood of the series.
One of the most interesting parts of the session came when we experimented with stillness as a form of movement. Instead of dynamic posing, we focused on near-motionless compositions where even the smallest shift in gaze or posture became significant. In those moments, the character felt less like she was being photographed and more like she was passing through the frame, briefly present before continuing onward.
What I love most about photographing Maetel is her emotional ambiguity. She carries a sense of story without ever needing to explain it, and that gives every image a feeling of depth beyond what is immediately visible. For me, this shoot was about embracing that quiet mystery - capturing a character who feels eternal, gentle, and endlessly in transit between worlds.
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