Spring Cleaning, 1947

Day 167: I've been participating in a photo group called Daily Shoot for almost a year now, and if I have learned one thing from it, it is that a good photographer needs to be versatile. When today's assignment asked for an image illustrating being indoors, I wanted to create a unique presentation rather than simply taking a shot of some object common to a household.

For an hour or so, the cobwebs hung thickly in my mind as I walked from room to room looking for inspiration. I was getting nowhere fast, and decided to get some overdue housework out of the way while I paced. It was while I was vacuuming that the idea for this shot was conceived. After all, what's more "indoor" than Spring cleaning?

I knew I wanted the "Ozzie and Harriet" or "Donna Reed Show" look for my model (myself), so I started digging in drawers for make-up left over from my harp-playing days. I found everything I needed except lipstick, so a surrogate was applied with a reddish-brown eyebrow pencil. The image begged to be shot in black-and-white anyway, so color didn't matter. The dress, the pearls, the Aunt Jemima bandanna and those horrendous shoes seemed to assemble themselves without any particular planning on my part. The final touch was good old Parson's Sudsy, a product which has been around for decades.