Miss Taken Identity

Tuesday February 3rd, 2009

At first glance, Barbara Green creates solid children’s lifestyle photography for clothing companies and portraits of the famous and not-as-famous. But dig a little deeper, and this Wonderful Machine photographer shows a wilder side that has helped capture the imagination of magazines, newspapers, and national radio.

The Los Angeles photographer recently shot all of the portraits for the Virgin book, A La Cart: The Secret Lives of Grocery Shoppers, by Hillary Carlip, which whimsically profiles 26 people and their oddball shopping habits. The difference is, all twenty-six fictional characters are portrayed by one real-life performance artist, Ms. Carlip.

Indeed, all of the following photographs are actually of the same woman. Hillary wrote the book as an offshoot of her hobby of collecting grocery store shopping lists that she finds on the floor. She created the characters based on who she imagined would have dropped those shopping lists. The book’s website has an entertaining video which quickly explains the concept.

From the Los Angeles magazine six-page spread about the book

A La Cart has caught the attention of Entertainment Weekly, National Public Radio, The Wall St. Journal, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and many others, including the actress/author/performance artist Amy Sedaris, who proclaimed, “I wish I had thought of this idea — I’m so jealous.”

From Publisher’s Weekly: “The 26 vivid photographic portraits and accompanying narratives display the author’s humor, grace and a brilliantly creative eye. Carlip’s alter egos are larger than life and twice as entertaining… A hilarious, delightful, unique achievement.”

You can check out more of Barbara Green’s photographs on her portfolio website. And to see a sample of her comfort with working with children, take a look at this behind-the-scenes video of a recent skate shoot. Barbara says of her approach: “I have a “young” attitude” which helps the kids relate to me, and put them at ease. At one point in the street/skate photo shoot, I handed my assistant the camera, got on a skateboard, and blew the kids away with some of my “old school skate skills”. They never really expect the photographer to have as much fun as they do…“