FEMALE MASKING

These photographs are part of a documentary series on the practice of “female masking,” in which individuals, predominantly men, put on women’s fetish wear and a latex mask in order to transform themselves into living dolls. Members of the masking community create multi-layered alter egos and assume fictional characters while documenting their role playing with photographs and sharing stories on community blogs.

These living dolls evoke for me the age-old stories of the inanimate creature come to life – Pygmalion’s Galatea, Gepetto’s Pinocchio and the androids of science fiction – with the twist that here the creator is also the creation. The photographs are not meant to be sexual, although some find them provocative and strange. In this series, I am primarily interested in capturing what seems to be a parallel world – a theatrical, artificial reality brought to life by the camera.