Leah Johnston- The Blog

Some out takes from my recent ‘Mantis’ shoot, which illustrates the poem by the same name about a praying mantis.

There were a lot of poses to choose from:

Ultimately, I ended up combining an image with good hand positions with an image that had a lot of motion blur in the face. I felt that some of the others seemed to obvious in terms of their sexuality. By using one with motion blur it would make what was happening a little bit more confusing- is this pleasure or pain? Is she in the throws of passion or about to consume her lover?

The final product:

The American Dollhouse is a series of photographs and poems centered around a masked family co-inhabiting a miniature dollhouse. The concept of shooting in a dollhouse originally arose as an alternative to creating expensive large-scale sets. I came to the realization that by shooting in miniature, I could capture the full expanse of a room without having access to the costly resources. Furthermore, I realized that the dollhouse could function as a metaphor, providing the perfect stage for the examination of the larger world it so innocently tries to emulate. The dollhouse, which has become an iconic childhood toy, is for many, the earliest indoctrination of the ‘American dream’, conveying to children at an impressionable age an idealistic representation of what the nuclear family should look like. While the dollhouse attempts to be sweet and inviting, in its gross oversimplification of reality, it renders itself artificial and somewhat hollow, as if to suggest, perhaps, that there were more to the story than what is being told.

In this series, I seek to uncover these untold stories by exploring the darker facets of the dollhouse, and furthermore, the American dream. Beneath the façade of perfection, we witness the inhabitants struggling with their own silent pains, the unspoken truths that exist beneath the external masks they all wear. Each character’s profound desire to break free of the house, of each other, is juxtaposed against the unbreakable bonds of bloodline, obligation, ritual and societal expectation. They are bound to this house, to each other, for better or worse. The very structure designed to safeguard them from the outside world is in essence their oppressor, a physical manifestation of the constrictions of the world around them. Within these confines, their inner dramas unfold, the incessant conflict between appearance and reality, duty and desire, public versus private takes place. The American Dollhouse is a personification of the American dream, wrought with its intrinsic flaws and sinister connotations.

Brooke and I both did self-portraits atop a giant boulder near Topanga Canyon. Climbing up was rather scary. You can’t tell from this photo, but we are up very high.

Test shot. Clearly dreading the next part where I have to be topless in public. Especially with that elderly couple off camera left staring at me…

Here’s the shot I ended up editing.

Now if only I could find a skeleton to edit into the photo…Oh, hello there!

Time for Little Bone’s close-up…

And finally, I put it all together!

Originally we were going to wrap me up in duct tape, which I thought would be rather painful in contact with my skin, so I geared up head to toe in this dorky out:

Upon beginning the mummification process, we realized this would look too shiny, so we went back to the store and got a bunch of ace bandages and hoped those would do the trick. Three additional trips to the store later, we finally had enough badage to finish the wrap. Here it is almost complete:

Hardly perfect, but we thought it would have to do. Here is the photo I ended up editing. Scroll down for before and afters:

I am still not sure I chose the right shot, so here are a couple outtakes:

The final product:

Here are some silly out takes from my Halloween shoot:

The Final Product