Groovy Girls after the Rapture

So I finished a rough draft of my newest book, "The Glamorous Life of a Writer". It is by far my most accessible work in a certain way, as it is a seriously simple story (though told in disturbing, hopeful and absurd one-sided emails).

I'm working with Cheyenne Glasgow to do the other half of the project, which is another story paralleling the first, but told in images.

I went over to Cheyenne's house yesterday to try and work out some of our graphic ideas. Originally, I was inspired to try this double story after seeing the groovy doll pictured above.

The doll's name is 'Dirty' (named by Cheyenne's five-year-old twins). Cheyenne came home and found the doll in this state, stuffed into a bottle.

"Dirty got captured". Said her son. What to say?

I decided I wanted to get a pic of the doll in electrical tape, too, but also with black thread marionette strings that would hang from my own fingers. The strings looked cool, but I have to say her son's tape job was better than mine. (a little over kill on my part)

For the shoot, Cheyenne and I wanted to use the Holga camera which is this amazing old camera that looks like a reverse periscope. Cheyenne built a right-angled parallelepiped (3d rectangle), out of cardboard that fits over the top lens of the Holga. She then used her digital power shot to take digital pics through the viewfinder of Holga. They look like the below entry.

The problem is that it is unbelievably difficult to get a clear shot because there isn't a real focus function, everything just has to stay very, very still... Good thing the doll is restrained... My fingers however, were less obedient.

Cheyenne is incredibly good at making these shots work, but I'm still figuring out what would actually work. There are a lot of variables to making these as cool as the one below.

What I LOVE about this style is that it looks like old fashioned spy photos. I don't think I'm going to exclusively use these images, though. She has other images that I think would fit well, but Cheyenne has the final word - and I like her aesthetic.

Fun to figure out as a problem in any case. Also fun to play baby dolls with my friends for a couple of hours...