Princess and the iPod

The Princess and the iPod image is really a story about sleep, or rather the lack of. I have forever wrestled with insomnia, and my lovely daughter has also been cursed by this insanely frustrating “condition” since she was very young.

Borrowing from the classic “Princess and the pea” tale, this story is about MY princess and her constant distractions and excuses to not fall asleep. We can easily blame technology, and I often do, but I know in my heart that iPod or not, there will always be some kind of Pea metaphor that distracts us both from our peaceful sleep.

When creating this story and deciding on the composition, I fluctuated between keeping it very, very simple and creating a sense of awkward busyness to reflect the kind of crazy distractions that we invent to keep us awake. I settled for somewhere in the middle.

See how many objects starting with the letter P you can see in the image...

The photo above is where the model originally posed for her sleep shot, on a wooden trunk below our kitchen bench. Not so comfy after all...

Below is the finished image in all its glory....