A Twin Peaks Halloween

This Halloween I wanted my self portrait series to give homage to the one and only teenage troubled queen, Laura Palmer.

I got into Twin Peaks about three years ago through a friend, who said I'd love it stylistically. (They were very right.) David Lynch, man. David Lynch. While I haven't seen many of his other works like Mulholland Drive or Blue Velvet (I know), I have recently watched Dune, which I loved, and which also stars the absolute baddie Kyle MacLachlan. But I mostly haven't gotten around to Lynch's other films because I've been so busy watching, and rewatching, Twin Peaks!

After diving into Season 1 and 2 multiple times, I finally felt this year like I understood it and was ready to see Fire Walk With Me, the film that followed the final week of Laura Palmer's life, showing all the gritty, dirty, awful scenes leading up to her death. To say it's disturbing and far more dark than the show is a real understatement, but I think that's part of the genius of David Lynch's storyline here. During Twin Peaks the show, Laura is shrouded in mystery. She's iconic, perhaps the central character in the show, without ever really appearing on-screen - except for that infamous prom photo. But in Fire Walk With Me, we see Laura for who she really was - a complicated, mixed up, demonically tortured girl who was searching for love. Full of sadness, really. She's so dimensional.

I wanted my costumes to really represent her as a legendary horror queen. I'm a photographer, so for these self portraits I drew direct inspiration from the iconic show imagery. Prom photo, the wrapped in plastic photo, and "meanwhile" from the red room.

For this entire series, I used items I had in my house already. I collect costume pieces and wardrobe, so that helps, but for the prom photo specifically I used a white bra with a scrap piece of white lace tucked into the front for the "dress." I had the crown from a past photography project, but I *did* end up ordering a clip-in bangs piece so I didn't have to go full-wig or cut my real hair. They turned out pretty believable, right? Now for post-production on this, the key was really in the yearbook style editing. I overprocessed the HECK out of this photo, adding glow layers, grain layers, changing my eye color and brightening my brown-ish hair to match Laura's blonde, relighting, oh my gosh. So many other layers that I don't even remember. I'm a fine-tuner...I'll tweak and tweak until my eyes bleed and I can't remember where I started.

For the next look, I had to go with the wrapped in plastic look.

This one I actually shot last, but I think it tells a better story if we go from her photographed alive, to dead, to after-death. So! For this look, I used white Halloween makeup all over, and an icy blue eyeshadow in certain spots and on my mouth. To give the impression of sand on my face, I used salt and (LOL) Everything But The Bagel Seasoning. Yep. And it got in my nose and stung really bad. Totally worth it though. The shower curtain was one we just had in the house, too. ;)

The editing on this frozen scene was pretty simple - lots of 90s grain, blue tones, bam. That's it.

And finally, I wanted to showcase Laura in the afterlife - in the red room, specifically. The limbo, or whatever the heck it is.

With my clip-in bangs on deck, it's time to go dark. I really wanted to capture the possession aspect, and so I adapted my own version of Laura's eyes being all whited-out and spooky in post-production. I already had the V-neck black shirt, and threw up a red backdrop really quickly for this look. Meanwhile, indeed.

Let me know what you love about Twin Peaks the most! Thanks for tuning into my Halloween Laura Palmer look. -Samantha