Your models also have a scared look or a sense of vulnerability.

What I see in the pictures is just this false veneer through beauty and make-up. Beneath this shell, there’s a real person who’s probably really scared. It’s not like things are great right now, but to continue on acting like everything is fine in the world and the commercial aspects of the world, I’m commenting on all that.

Why are they mostly alone?

It’s funny you asked that because I was just toying around with the idea of having my next series be all group photos. It wasn’t intentional. I think it was just because I spent a lot of time alone. I don’t want to analyze myself.  In the beginning, a lot of the ideas would come to me when I was alone—just out in the middle of the night driving around trying to come up with ideas. I would just imagine myself in this situation or that situation. I’m not saying its me in the photos, because that’s not what’s happening at all. It’s based on my experiences, and then I put somebody else in that same experience and try to imagine what this person’s world would be. The girl is her own person. She’s imaginary. I actually don’t know what’s really happening with her. I feel like sometimes they just have their own mysteries, even from me—or there own secrets.

Where do you find these outfits? And the props and wigs and all that?

The wigs I just find wherever. I used to wig shop all the time. In Hollywood especially, the wigs are really cheap. I got a lot of wigs from thrift stores, or I buy theater wigs. The clothes I find at thrift stores, too. A lot of them end up in my own closet because a lot the clothes I buy specifically for a shoot, I’ll make sure I can wear them later. [laughs] A lot of the times, I’ll wear the outfit around after I’ve exhibited it, and people will ask me if it was in a photo. The way I dress my girls or the hairdos they have is very contemporary to me or something I’d wear. I sometimes wear fake eyelashes.

So, it’s not necessarily all an act?

The original idea behind the photos or the basic idea I kind of started with was kind of this soap opera or overacting. Basically, these girls are really bad actresses. They’re living out this really dramatic, serious lifestyle. Everything is overdone. Their feelings are magnified. It’s like the classic 1950’s film actress. Or even back to silent films where everything was a little bit overdone—like these women are in mortal danger and running from something, but you don’t know what it is. [laughs] It’s all sort of campy and overdone and playful. I like that aspect of the silent films. It’s also like a small town group of girls got together and formed a drama group where they wanted to put on plays, but they’re all really bad actresses. [laughs]