Alaskan Gothic

For over a year I have been gathering the props to take a photo of the twins in the style of Grant Wood's American Gothic portrait.


The hardest part was finding a child sized pitchfork. I tried getting one at Halloween time. I looked online for the props for a devil's costume and for Trident's pitchfork. I had no luck. Then this spring while I was wandering through the aisles at JoAnn's I found one! It was on the gardening aisle attached to a bird house. (The pitchfork was the end you stick in the ground!) I removed the birdhouse and had Mark cut a dowel down to the right length and finally I had my pitchfork.

The next item of business was finding the right costumes for the twins. Viva owns dozens of dresses, but none of them were staid enough. Then early this summer Kara purchased a size 4 (too large, but I used safety pins) brown corduroy dress. I put a size 2 (too small) dress with a white collar under the brown dress. Kara put Viva's hair in a pony tail and she was ready.

For Jake I had to purchase a pair of overalls. Again, they were too small, but it was only cheap pair in the used clothing store. To the overalls I added Bentley's (too large) suit jacket. The kids were decked out. Now for a good location to shoot.

Mark lined them up on our driveway with the neighbor's pitched roof behind them. It wasn't perfect (the twins are much shorter than the couple in American Gothic), but it worked all right.

Next I wanted to borrow the neighbor's lawn because he has a small Alaska log cabin (AKA cache) on the edge of his lawn. The only problem is he's a recluse and wouldn't answer his door when I knocked so I couldn't ask his permission. Mark didn't care about that technicality, he just stuck the twins in front of the cache and took some quick shots.

How did we get them to cooperate? I bribed them with a promise of box of fruit snacks each. Fruit snacks are a banned-by-mom food, so they will work hard to earn them. Jake was very easy to work with, but Viva was a bit of a trial. She kept bopping up and down and running off.




Did they do a good job? Remember they are only three years old! (I kept telling Viva to look grumpy--hence the VERY grumpy expression on her face.)