Here's a couple of brand new still lifes.
This is a festive one for the holidays:

Iron Bunny

I rescued this poor creature from the cats, who were dragging it around their scratching post. I think they were finished with it anyway, as I'm sure they realized it contained no meat.

Promises

Here's a fun photomanipulation/collage I made out of props and backgrounds:

Combination Platter

My husband just left this morning for a 3 week tour. (He's a drummer) I'll miss him, but I don't mind being alone. So, free time for more of my weird pictures!

Wheel Of Fate

a simple one

wrapped hand, aka time on my hands

I think I've finally got this thing down!

Here's the sign for the bar downstairs from our apartment. I'm not a big drinker and I've only been there a few times, but it is definitely a dive. There are some eerie and sad stories connected with a couple of people who frequent this place. They have karaoke nights every Saturday, which we hear pretty clearly, especially during the summer.

1. I don't have Photoshop. It's too expensive and probably wouldn't work well on my decrepit old IMac. I use a basic program called Graphic Converter.
   
2. None of these are all that highly edited. I mess with the brightness/contrast, sometimes sharpen it a bit, and use some color saturation.
   
3. My camera is a cheap Kodak model. I'm poor.

About me:

Braettie is my real name. Blame my parents, who are old hippies. I'm 33, female, and I live in Chicago with my husband and our two cats. Most of my pictures are taken in my house because I like working with still life and I'm a bit agoraphobic.
I started taking pictures in high school. The interest in still life started there, too. I delighted my teacher and frightened my classmates with images of painted mannequin heads flanked by old books and dead baby birds. It wasn't until much later that I saw David Lynch's photography and the fine work of Joel-Peter Witkin. when I realized I was hardly alone in my fascination with juxtaposition and decay. (Not that I would put myself in the same class with those incredibly talented and accomplished artists whose work makes mine look useless.)
None of my efforts are meant to shock anyone. I'm a person of extremes with a lot of curiosity and no fear of experimentation, so the pictures tend to reflect those traits.
Although there are pills and pill bottles in some of the photos, I don't use drugs recreationally, ever. What you see in the photos is legal and was legally obtained. The red pills in the Red And Silver Study are old antibiotics I neglected to take a couple of years ago. The pill bottles once contained blood pressure meds, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and ADD meds, all of which were prescribed to me by a doctor. That's a lot of detail, but I just wanted to make this clear before anyone became unduly alarmed. Some of the still lifes involve dreams and escapism, but some reflect my own unadulterated reality.

I took this picture on a chair in my bedroom. It looks far more edited than it actually is; I just messed with the brightness and contrast.
Most of my stuff is a series of still lifes. I'm a big fan of dolls, antiques, strange objects, and weird juxtapositions.