When working on my Master of Fine Arts degree, I’d wonder around San Francisco trying to figure out how to complete my next homework photo assignments.  “Go shoot fear, print it and turn it in next week for critique,” my Concepts professor would say.  I’d always start with zero ideas, then I’d walk around the city.  The giant department store window displays always piqued my interest, with the mannequins inside showing off the latest fashion trends.  Other sights, sounds and smells would permeate my senses, creating story-ideas followed with lots of questions.  These made-up stories fueled my various projects.  One story about models and their children friends stuck with me, which turned into my Thesis project titled Play Date.  It all started from a question - what iif a mannequin befriended a child?  Then, more questions began bubbling up, such as:

• What would their day be like?

• How would the two interact?

• What kind of role would the mannequin play in the child’s life and vice-versa?

• What kind of reaction would everyone else have to this strange relationship?

Keep in mind for context, the word “mannequin” can easily be a living model, or the plastic-like statues found in the windows displays.  After ruminating on this for a bit, I set out to create a series of photos telling these stories.

Play Date conveys a strong sense of design using shapes, linear perspective, implied and psychic lines.  The primary purpose of the imagery is art for commerce, meaning calling attention to fashion, through the use of use of contrast by inserting uncommon clothes in common everyday environments.  Composition, light and styling were also used to draw attention to the fashion, and help tell the stories.  As the project evolved, I started to incorporate my own subtle commentaries on various social, interpersonal and/or psychological topics.  All photos were created between 2009-2011.