About

FRAGMENTS: Stills & Stories is a project with humanity on full display. Life is hard and these fragments do not shy away from that. Each photographic image is paired with its own flash fiction. A tale is told. Quickly.

The train rushes by. The images in the passing windows are like fleeting frames of film. Lives frozen for a second in time, then gone.

Vision
Nostalgia shapes my artistic vision. The inspiration for my photographic images is film noir of the '40s and '50s. Film noir provides a doorway to a dark, pessimistic and fatalistic world. For needed levity, I'm also inspired by the British spy genre of the '60s. The spy genre echoes the paranoia of film noir, but brings humor and camp to the table. My goal is to include all these elements in my portrait photography.

And
I am also interested in society's fascination with the human face and form. I am drawn to manufactured objects that represent the human form: mannequins, dolls, armatures, phrenology heads, wooden artists figures, etc. It will be no surprise, then, to learn that the models in my images are 12" action figures.

Thoughts on Action Figures
Action figures should not be bound by the costumes they were boxed in. They should be allowed to shed those manufactured identities and be given the opportunity to express their own true unique selves. They may have something to tell us.

Visit www.stephaniehaughton.com to see more images.