Plasticine Prehistoric

Brachiosaurus neck reaching up through succulent leaves
Yellow Stegosaurus roaring from a rock summit
Green T-Rex in jade plant stems
Grey-brown T-Rex peering through succulent stems against blue sky
Close-up T-Rex portrait through succulent foliage, golden eyes
Green Stegosaurus navigating between large tree trunk legs and rocks
Santa sleigh with dinosaur reindeer against blood moon
Dinosaur chorus line reacting to incoming comet
Toy T-Rex in Santa hat watching a flaming comet streak overhead while three other dinosaurs react in panic in the background, against a dark studio sky

The Beginning

Some creative projects begin with a plan. This one began with a plastic dinosaur and a question: what if?

I bought the original figures at Toys R Us, back when Toys R Us was still a thing. They were inexpensive, brightly colored toys, designed for a child’s bedroom floor rather than a photographic series. I placed them among succulents and miniature landscapes, sent one across a blood-moon sky pulling a sleigh, and gave another a front-row seat for the arrival of a comet.

I have told students for years that play is not a break from serious creative work. It is serious creative work. The technical decisions still matter. The premise simply gives them somewhere less predictable to go.

The Next Chapter

I am returning to Plasticine Prehistoric with a different visual language: black and white, hard directional light, deep shadow, and fog. The new photographs will draw from film noir and suspense cinema, treating ordinary plastic toys as inhabitants of a dangerous and fully realized world.

The dinosaurs remain toys. The light is under no obligation to treat them that way.

Archival prints are available in multiple sizes, each made to order on museum-quality paper with pigment inks rated to last 100+ years, a reasonable investment for creatures that already survived one extinction event (ask Toys R Us).