Face Of The Day

For his series Burlesque, Sean Scheidt photographed performers before and after their transformations:

In his portraits, Scheidt captures the virtually nondescript everyday face of the performers. These are people who, aside from the occasional colored hair, look, well… normal. In Scheidt’s description of the work, he says that they tended to be quite reserved at first, which made the transformation into their characters all the more transfixing.

Scheidt described his inspiration in an interview earlier this year:

It was really a confluence of two separate things. First, I was hired to do a shoot for DNA theater. This allowed me to go backstage and get a glimpse of the transformation of the actors. About this time, I was also reading Harpo Marx’s autobiography. Marx talked a lot about Judy Garland, which sent me to search her out on YouTube. I was amazed to see how, even in her declining years, Garland lit up, once she stepped onto the stage. I guess it was then that I realized the stage has the power to transform a person into someone else. The question I wanted to explore was finding the reality within that transformation.

He added:

Capturing those moments, I believe, helps to humanize these performers. If you were just seeing the “after” shots alone, you might make certain pre-conceived judgements about the person behind the make-up. I hope this series gets people to think about their reactions to these men and women.

See more of his work here and here.