Friday, November 23, 2012
Beauty Queens
The latest addition in my series of photographs inspired by young adult photos. This one was inspired by the YA novel, BEAUTY QUEENS written by Libba Bray.
This book is about a plane full of teenage beauty pageant contestants who crash onto an island and must use their pageant skills to survive.
Oh dear god, what is there to say about this photo? It's a disaster....in the best possible way.
I owe a huge debt of thanks to several people for making this photo happen:
1. My mom for handmaking those sashes which each represent the state those girls live in. Even though you can't see it: California, Kansas and Georgia.
2. My boyfriend for actually helping me to buy those tacky pageant dresses. He graciously braved a shopping trip and even picked out a few dresses, claiming the ones I selected weren't "pageanty enough".
3. My sisters (the two on the left) and my cousin (on the right) for not only allowing me to put awesomely-bad makeup on their beautiful faces and mussing up their hair, but donning those dresses a few hours before Thanksgiving dinner and braving the cold ocean air in front of MANY families to pose for me.
4. A big thanks to the author of the book, Libba Bray, for writing such a visual, hilarious and entertaining story. The second I started reading this book I knew I wanted to do a fauxto for it. So thank you Libba for sparking my imagination is giving me a memorable project to work on during the Thanksgiving holidays.
Yes, we got a lot of raised eyebrows and a few "what pageant did you just come from?" questions, but mostly what we got was this awesome photo. This, to me, may be the closest a photo has ever come for me to looking exactly how it is in my head. Most photos look different in my head than they do in the final product, but this is the closest so far.
I feel like after this photo I have a duty to add more comedic books to my roster. Because if they are this fun to read and then do photos for, I need to do MANY, MANY more in the future!
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Margot! I am a huge Libba fan and this is incredible!!!! Def one of my favorite fauxtos!
ReplyDeletePs- Happy Thanksgiving!
This is one of my favorites! You did an amazing job! Great pic!
ReplyDeleteThank you Nikki! So glad you like it!
DeleteI read this book a while ago but still remember enough to know that this is a great picture to represent it!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this! I've been waiting and waiting for you to post it, since you said you were doing it. This is such a great book! Sparkle Ponies FTW!
ReplyDeleteOkay, this is straight-up AMAZING. I mean, the photography, obviously, but your SISTERS! The FACES! Awesome work, ladies. :D
ReplyDeleteDude, their faces TOTALLY make this photo. On the left, she is so pouty but still playing with her split ends, and the middle is so overly dramatic and the one of the right looks genuinely distressed! I couldn't believe I caught that on camera, they did an awesome job.
DeleteBwahaha, I love this one, Margot! It's certainly one of my favorites, and I'm glad it came out so close to how you envisioned it. You're right, the comedic aspect provides a great set up. Kudos to your sisters/cousin for pulling that out, and I was glad to see you say on Twitter that Libba approved! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Heidi!!! Glad you approve! If you ever have any comedic YA books to recommend for this series, let me know!
DeleteHahaha, SUUUUCH a fun photo!
ReplyDeleteHILARIOUS!! We haven't read the book (yet) but from the snippets and reviews, we can tell you've captured the essence. The faces definitely help. ;P
ReplyDeleteNice Photoshop job too, wow!
I am really loving all these great photos. I'm a new follower and I can't wait to see what book will inspire you next!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Carrie! So glad you found my site and are enjoying the photos! Hopefully I will craft some more pics you love soon!
DeleteLove this photo! I think it's Sister Left that makes me laugh the most -- her facial expression is priceless.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading this at the moment so I love seeing this - the photo perfectly captures the books!
ReplyDeleteMands xox
That's a FANTASTIC photo. One of my faves you've done definitely!
ReplyDeleteOh wow, I LOVE this one. The expressions on the models' faces are absolutely perfect! Only way this could be any better is if you had the trey coming out of a head (though not ACTUALLY coming out of her head, because I think you would get in legal trouble ;)).
ReplyDeleteThis photograph is AMAZING! I feel as though BEAUTY QUEENS needs to be republished using your cover art because this will appeal to a whole group of readers who didn't notice the book the first time around! It sums everything up so perfectly!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I was just linked to your blog. I can't wait to see what else you do!
WOW! Love your blog, this is really creative! I wish you would do Shadow and Bone!:)
ReplyDeleteYour photos are fantastic! Thanks for sharing them!
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool!
ReplyDeleteSo far my favorite of your photos has to be the Daughter of Smoke and Bone one, amazing.
Keep up the great work :)
So I haven't read this book but I like what you said about this is the closest product that you've had to how it is in your head. I've heard several authors talk about how difficult writing is because they have a hard time capturing the vision of the story in their heads and they just do the best that the can even if they can't always translate what they envision into pen and paper (or computer screen).
ReplyDelete