Boxheads
By Zack Huggins
24 July 2007
Halloween, 2004. In order to qualify for a costume party/ dance contest, two close friends and I threw together the easiest costume we could think of at the time: Three cardboard boxes, with crude facial expressions drawn on them. We snapped a few pictures of ourselves wearing them and went on our merry way.
Looking at the pictures later, I found them strangely compelling. I continued to make Boxhead photographs, baffled by their odd popularity.
Years later, I think I might finally understand what others see in them.
They are a parody of human emotion. A chance to laugh at ourselves, really.
They started as a slapdash affair and have turned into a thoroughly staged project with a great deal of planning involved, and a meticulously crafted box for each shoot. Which might be funny in its own right. These ridiculous faces that look so poorly made take me forever to get right. The eyebrows are the hardest. The eyebrows are always the hardest.
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