There are few things from my childhood as iconic as a Barbie. Every girl I knew had or wanted one, so all the way back in 2011, I did a series of photographs with Barbies, which was encouraged and inspired by my dear friend Emma Roberts. During that series there was one Barbie I searched for and was never able to find, it was this one, from the 60’s and this was the first Barbie I ever saw as a kid at my grandmothers house. When I stumbled upon it, I knew I would have to add it to the series. This was shot on my Hasselblad film camera and I even left the film border in to show it’s not cropped or touched in any way. I wanted an iconic portrait of the most iconic doll ever made, and I used a camera as old as this Barbie to do it.

This image is from my Mouthful collection and helped spawn the entire series. The mouth is that of Francesca Eastwood, daughter of Clint Eastwood. I wanted to tell a story with a sequence of mouths. I got really into trying to take a perfect photo of the mouth. When I shoot, I am normally looking for one image, but when I was making this, I was looking for 16 great shots. It was a different way of thinking. When I saw the first print, I knew it could be a special work. The mouth is the gateway to the mind, and fortunately for me I am not the only one interested in mouths. This photo was in the window and main wall at Sotheby’s London and was the principal piece featured in the Erotic: Passion and Desire auction.

This photograph is a double exposure taken on a Leica camera. I took the first part of the photo in New York, hopped on a friend’s jet, came straight from the airport and took the second part of the photo. All in all, this photo took 8 hours to take. During the flight, I kept looking at the camera as though I was imagining how the film would come out. I am also not used to waiting 8 hours to finish a photo, so this was new for me. When I saw the photo, I titled it Karen after a dear friend who is a brain surgeon and wears high heels while she operates.

Black and White partial nude portrait

To date, this may be the most dangerous photo I have ever taken because there were so many moving parts. The dress flying, her hand in the moth of a lion, the lion itself wondering what is going on, but let’s take it back a moment first. This happened in my backyard where I built a set and had a lion delivered. That was the easy part, finding the dress may have been the hardest part of this whole shoot and getting it to fly without the lion going for it was nothing short of a miracle. I took this on a Deardorff 8x10 large format camera, which means that we only did 2 takes and I had no idea if we got the shot. What came out was nothing short of magic, and I always feel like my photos are meant to be and I just haven’t taken them yet. When I saw the film of this photo sitting on the light table all I could think was this is magic.

Chanel Legs came to me in a dream where everything was oversized. The only issue with waking up and wanting to take the photo instantly is that everything I dreamed about didn’t really exist, so I set out on figuring out how to make this a reality. It started with having the giant box crafted and then finding the exact size of legs it took to come out of the box. It took about 2 months to get the box made with the logo on it. A lot of people would just add the logo in Photoshop, but I wanted it to actually be on the box and for the box to be as real as possible. It was definitely worth waiting for! Now I want you to take a moment and imagine holding your legs in that position for an hour. This was shot on my Hasselblad film camera and it came out even better than I dreamed.

This photo was shot on color chrome film and taken on a Hasselblad camera with a special lens set up. Unlike most mouth images this is full frame with no crop.

Taken on a Hasselblad film camera, which are renowned for their uncompromising image quality and extremely high performance. This image goes back to my Historical Fiction series and is a nod to old Hollywood and one of its most iconic stars. Taken at the former house of Marilyn Monroe, the idea was a snapshot of a moment at the pool. Marilyn became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950’s and early 1960’s and was emblematic of the era’s changing attitudes towards sexuality. Allie said she could still feel Monroe’s presence and that this was a enchanted place.

I was awake around 4 am one night and I kept thinking about taking a mirror out into the salt flats in Utah for a photo. That same night I was looking up Rolleiflex cameras on eBay and I happened to find one, which the owner purchased in 1959. In that moment, I saw this photo exactly the way it is, so I ordered the camera and then a mirror moments later and within 3 weeks I was in the salt flats taking this photo. Rolleiflex is the name of a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke. The “Rolleiflex” name is most commonly used to refer to Rollei’s premier line of medium format twin lens reflex (TLR) cameras. This first Rolleiflex was introduced in 1929, and a lot of amazing people throughout history used this camera including Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.