Happy Holidaze

With a little imagination you can create a whole story around a single image. Karen’s letter to her mother offers a little insight into the workings of this family.

My tendency is to look at things with a bit of humor. So when I read an article in a magazine (honestly can’t remember which one, but it was captivating) about a convention for people who suffer with Obsessive Compulsive disorder, I started imagining who the participants may be. And as it often happens, once you start thinking about something everyone around you seems to be talking about it too! Thus came up the idea of a guy who eats his chocolate bars with knife and a fork. That visual got stuck in my head and the only way to get it out was to create the character and photograph it. I admit, I am obsessive compulsive that way too! So I had the idea, but I thought it would be so much more interesting if he had a family as well and the real work began.

I was so incredibly happy when one of my favorite models Jerald agreed to work on this with me! He is great with creating characters and playing them out. He brought so much to the shoot, just amazing! And he brought along his beautiful daughter Sage, who I can honestly say has a great career ahead of her! She was so delighted when I asked her to spill ice cream onto her dress. She wanted to giggle, but stayed in character and gave me some fantastic shots to work with.

The always beautiful Karin made our perfect mother of the family. I’m always happy to provide a challenge for models. Each character in the dessert shot is photographed separately and the image is a composite. We worked with expressions and ideas and later on I edited the images down to get the true moment and the tension at the table between the family members.

This image and the other two in the series worked out better than I had imagined!