Photography

Mimi got her headshots done in the little wonky studio round the corner from Old Bert’s off the King’s Road in the patchy summer of ’64. She was thrilled with the hair she’d torn off the house cat and viciously attached to her scalp and she’d begged and begged the old hag over the road to borrow her cut-offs from the garish orange display in her little dusty shop. She didn’t care, she felt like a superstar, ready to hit the world with all she had (which wasn’t a huge amount – a misguided love for mean men and a clumsy gait that made her look half drunk the whole time) but she was happy today and that’s all that mattered. today she could taste stardom, with all its glittering crunch and dizzying speed, it was as though she could reach out and touch it and, for a moment, maybe she did…or maybe it was just the busy 33 trundling towards her…

Janet was sick to death of it all. She wasn’t going to hang around waiting for it to happen, she had woken up that morning with the decision already in her mind. It was time to sort it all out. You should see all the other things she’d sorted out and hidden in that overgrown garden… her little patch of heaven… oh the things you’ll see… the people you’ll meet…

She released her new fragrance ‘blue orange’ and received mixed responses. It was made from the blood of orange growers and blue paint chipped off from seaside cabins, topped off with a tiny piece of her own misery and self-pity. Spray it all over and you’ll feel blue for months if you don’t already!

It was 1983 and Angela’s nose job had failed (she hadn’t told her mother or her on-again-off-again boyfriend Mick that she’d gone in for the operation (they wouldn’t need to bring flowers that way, not that they would have anyway)). Apparently it had been too hard to grapple with, too arched and large for poor snub-nosed Dr. Jacobson’s delicate scalpel. In the end Angela had no other choice but to commit full time to the punk aesthetic and pretend to not give a shit, which worked out well for her because Mick didn’t like insecure girls and was too lazy to give a shit about anything anyway so they moved in and it was all peaches and roses (rotting and thorny) until later when Angela came home one night (spent and exhausted after another gruelling shift at her grotty pub in Camden) to find Mick in bed with Nancy – a girl with an even bigger nose than hers! Could you even imagine such a thing!?!!

Marianne wanted to re-enact her birth – break from the amniotic sack and out into the world again. She thought it would rejuvenate and thrill her but familiar disappointment flooded over in lapping waves, a dull weight gradually filling her stomach. The water had gone cold and the neighbours next door were groaning with pleasure.

Leandra wanted desperately to relive the glory days and return to the squishy pillows of the uterine lining. Here she depicts the first blood clot. Later she will demonstrate the first menstrual blood spilt without her consent and with unrivalled fury. She no longer likes it in this turgid world but longs to be with that beating heart – the one she used to know, before it dried up, all cold and grey.

Cora (aka ‘Cora the whore-a’) pictured here in the process of doll birth (her 72nd “doll delivery”) died on this day in 1973. She reportedly said to the photographer after taking this: “don’t talk to me or my children ever again!”. The photographer was in fact her human son. After years of attempting to care for his mother and her total disconnection from grounded reality, he gave up and locked her in an antique doll’s house. The dolls were subsequently destroyed.

Although the girl with the flowers in her hair had left, Graham was thriving. He listened to the birds bickering (a domestic squabble, no doubt) and watched the wasps spit fig juice over one another (in fact it was quite erotic) and the darkness inside was momentarily paused while he stared out through his piss stained glasses and thought of her sweet honeysuckle scent and, well, the tits on that bitch. That summer, it was bliss… or close enough.

Marilyn was tired of the copycats, the silly bitches. “it’s good they told me what the moon was when I was a child, it’s better they told me as a child what it was for I could not understand it now”

Loretta liked to blend into the background, it made her feel part of something and also it made her cold porcelain limbs ache less and then she wouldn’t have to visit the chiropractor so often and as everyone knew that cost a pretty penny or two.

graham was thrilled. the sun was out and his home brew had matured to a fine oaty texture. this was going to be his summer - he knew it. he'd find a girl with flowers in her hair and settle down (like ma had always wanted) and he'd greet the morning with a cig and a milky cuppa (his compost mulching nicely in the background) he'd declare to no one in particular (the girl with flowers in her hair had left the week before) "blimey isn't the British summer laaaavley!?" as the birds built their nests and the wasps devoured the figs. tweet tweet. buzz buzz.

the doll head looked her straight in the eyes and told her how she was going to die x

janie's hard plastic exterior was really just a front, she was a lovely girl deep down - however, her artistic attempt to celebrate her childhood had led her to steal stickers from the brats she babysat and "borrow" the keys to her childhood home - her bloody mother wouldnt stop calling to whine about being left out in the rain. "MUM! I'm literally just taking a COUPLE MORE PICTURES!! can you please just be a little understanding FOR ONCE!! *click click* *tap tap* *tit tit*

léo and leontine were very happy together. it was always very quiet and very still and that was how they liked it. well, except on wednesdays when léo would come back from therapy weeping and screaming and léontine would mime sweet messages she had learnt from the back of a romance novel and give him cold caresses (that he wished would, one day, warm up) and then while the sky clouded over and the foxes came out, they would reapply his makeup together and flatten out those wrinkles and cover up those dimples and put themselves together again. all would be well and in its place... well, until the next wednesday when the world would turn upside down again and everything would look different in the light...

maribel wiled away the hours and the years and she didn't mind because time passed like smoke and that smoke was in her lungs keeping her going and rejuvenating her so that the next day she would be ready to start her life all over again right from the comfort of her old chair (that her grandmother had built and broken and built again), with a sneer on her tea stained lips and a wisp of cloudy regret in her eyes.

Shirley was very protective over Bonnie and their life together. there was lots of lying in tall grass and skipping stones and quite often the bees would hear them burst out giggling with their hands clasped over their mouths. Life was easy. No phone calls. No schedules. Just sun and wanderings. No nasty letters in the post they had to answer. No worried messages from their sister (who had spoken to their mother which was never good news...). None of That. Just tiny teacups and sleepy afternoons. Nothing else at all. Now be quiet! Shhh! Bonnie's sleeping !!!

sally thought she wanted to but ended up not enjoying it so much. not really at all.

Despite everyone's efforts Briony's diagnosis of permanent seasonal depression had not subsided. they'd tried it all but nothing filled her with more joy than watching time dribble away down the front of her newly starched shirt (mother believed starch was the cure for anything, she'd been caught pouring it in her cereal at breakfast just the other day). Briony loved floating through her life without the bicker and twitter of voices and opinions and comments and views and advise. she had a fulfilling summer. she did nothing at all. little did they know how happy she really was.

briony was a rather shy girl who struggled with seasonal depression all year round.

the queen was dead and ursala thought they meant rupaul. her moment of great (but thankfully imagined) loss was captured here and she's still quite shaken up about it all.

Thalia Kent-Egan

Photography