New Work: See Me Be - Paper craft shoot

I’m excited to showcase some new work I created for See Me Be. This project gave me the chance to get crafty with some paper crafting, which was a real treat! The task was to photograph six dolls, each representing a different profession: a vet, a police officer, an astronaut, a firefighter, a farmer, and a race car driver. My client wanted to create a little world for these characters to live in, helping to tell the story of their professions while keeping the styling minimal and elegant. Paper craft seemed like the perfect fit.

When I pitched this idea to my client, she loved it. The first step was designing the sets, so I created mockups of the paper craft elements I planned to make for each character. We went back and forth a few times, fine-tuning the props to ensure they really told the story we were after. Once the mockups were approved, I got to work.

This involved dusting off my Cricut machine to cut all the pieces, followed by several days of folding and gluing to bring the props to life. It was actually so much fun—I really love paper crafting! (Hire me to make your paper sets, everyone!) You can check out some reels showcasing the process of making these props here and here.

Next, we headed to the studio to shoot. Since the props were a mix of 2D and 3D objects, I played with the compositions, positioning some objects in the foreground, midground, and background. I also shot at a lower-than-usual F-stop to create a stylistic blur and add extra depth. You can view some behind-the-scenes reels of the shoot here and here.

Finally, it was time to edit. As you can see in the reels above, I shot these images against a grey backdrop and added the color in post-production. I also spent some time cleaning up the paper props and adding little faces to the animals. I had such a great time creating these images. Getting to put my crafting hat on and make the paper props was a real highlight, and I can’t wait for the next paper project to come along.