Hanging Heads on a Clothesline

The story behind "Laundry Day"

If she says she can’t come out because she has to wash her hair, air dry it, and “put on her face”…this is what she’s doing. It takes a while to wash all those heads, hang them out in the sunshine to dry, and then pick one to reattach to your headless body!

How did I create this photo? It took over 125 shots to get all the pieces I needed to bring this together by compositing in Photoshop. The heads on the line, the heads in the basket, and the headless woman are all me. This was back in 2021 so I was just learning how to do this. My husband was a great help in the posing process. I’ll show you 10 photos from the photo shoot that will give you an idea of the process:

I used shoes to weight down the clothesline so it would look like the heads hanging on it are heavy. The basket hanging on the right has clothespins in it.

There were many test poses before I bothered to get dressed for the real shoot.

I got dressed and posed in ways that would be easy to take off my head.

I needed to put my head in the basket at least 3 times to fill it up with heads. By now I’m sure the neighbors are wondering what the hell we’re doing!

Getting another head shot.

And another…my husband is shooting with a camera remote in his hand.

Now he clothespinned my hair to the clothesline while I made faces.

Hanging Head #2

Hanging Head #3

Hanging Head #4! The neighbors can relax now, we’re done.

I took a few more pictures with a black winter coat stuffed in the wicker laundry basket to block the sun that was coming through the holes. It helped make the basket look full of heads. Post-production included taking out the shoes and replacing them with hanging heads, trying to fix chromatic aberration before I knew the easy fix, cloning, lighting, shadows, color tweaks and getting a good aspect ratio.

I learned a fascinating and important lesson about a month later! I belong to a small, close-knit photography group who wanted to learn what it’s like to create photos like I do. They wanted to experience recreating my Laundry Day photo but have their OWN heads on the line and in the basket! They brought some different props, helped set up the scene, got the camera situated and the settings chosen, and then took turns posing. I did the post processing according to their directions which included that they wanted it in black and white or sepia. What did I learn?? I learned that collaborating is hard work because you have to cooperate and compromise with several people. And communicate!! When it’s just me, I know what I want without putting it into words. When it’s a group, we all have to work together. Here is the final result of their shoot: