This photo essay for My Table magazine was awarded a 2006 Lone Star Award, by the Houston Press Club.
Disproportionate Fun
I’ve always been drawn to details and fascinated by tiny environments. To illuminate the micro-worlds that I see, I use an old trick of inserting a recognizable object to define scale.  But instead of using the trick to show what size things really are, I use it to challenge the viewer to see what might be. When I discovered these figures, which are made for model railways, I was immediately excited by the fact that they have jobs, tasks, ways of engaging with the world.  Through their interaction, I can redefine not just scale, but an object’s significance.

There is a phenomenal produce store in Berkeley.  When I’m feeling low on inspiration I go there and browse.  I stand, surrounded by seasonal and exotic offerings, and let my eye wander to colors and textures that invite settings for my industrious and adventurous little collaborators.  

It’s no secret that people take food very seriously in the San Francisco Bay Area.  In this particular store there’s a flurry of surreptitious and not-so-subtle cart-content evaluation between customers.  You can be sure that your ratio of garlic heads to Yukon Golds is being mentally weighed by your neighbor. 
You can inquire, for purely culinary reasons, just HOW that attractive grazer next to you is going to prepare that chard.  My cart always raises eyebrows. What on earth could I be concocting from a single artichoke, two pears and a dozen habanero peppers? Sometimes expressions of concern are too strong to contain. I once had a woman behind me in line tap me on the shoulder and say, “You do know those are very hot, right?”

Since I pride myself in eating my props, I do in fact usually concoct something to include everything I bring home.   Exceptions include the champagne, which was cheap to begin with, and warm when I was done shooting the picture.  The coffee, also, didn’t make it to consumption.  Way, way, way too many test cups had already been downed by the time the last shutter clicked.
These photos use conventional photographic techniques. I create the scenes and light them in front of the camera, drawing on my background as a theater designer and a lover of shoebox dioramas.

I get a thrill when people who have seen these photos bring me things; burnt toast, desiccated fruit peels, half eaten muffins.  They  say, “I saw this and I thought of you !  Isn’t it great!  Isn’t it beautiful?”  It makes me happy to think that perhaps my pictures encourage people to see things a little differently and a little more joyfully.

Audrey Heller is a native of San Francisco.  For the last several years, she has been showing her theatrical photographs at top juried art festivals around the country, including the Bayou City Art Festival, the Dallas Art Fest and the Austin Fine Arts Festival.  Her work is collected by individuals and organizations around the country.  A full collection of work for sale, as well as listings of shows can be seen at www.audreyheller.com.