Lisa Frankenstein – The Bride of Lisa Frank
Long before I ever touched a camera, I was just another night owl lost in the endless scroll of Tumblr. I’d spend what felt like lifetimes drifting through a sea of moody portraits, cosmic color palettes, and quiet emotion, wishing I could create something that lived up to what I saw there. I sometimes wonder how many miles my thumb traveled in pursuit of inspiration.
Now, years later, I stand behind the lens as a photographer, my work a living collage of all those nights. I can still feel the echo of Tumblr’s influence in my images, the colors, the texture, the quiet ache for beauty. It’s a craving that never really fades, this urge to bring the imagined into being.
Luckily, I’m married to someone who shares that creative pulse. Leslie, a Special Effects Makeup Artist, often dreams in a different direction than I do, but every so often, we both catch the same spark. That happened when she came to me with an idea: The Bride of Frankenstein, but with the color palette of Lisa Frank.
I saw it immediately. dolphins’ in rainbow hues, gothic drama dipped in 80s nostalgia. Lisa Frank, the queen of technicolor notebooks and childhood joy, had never stepped into the shadowy world of Halloween… until now. The idea felt both absurd and perfect.
We’d played with the Bride before, once twisting the concept into something new, but this was different. This time, it was about contrast: horror meeting harmony, darkness bathed in color. So, we gathered at Casa Scott. Kat, our model, brought her radiant energy and creative soul. Mac, our stylist, arrived armed with combs, hair picks, and enough hairspray to stop time. Leslie conjured her magic with colors that shouldn’t have worked but somehow did. And me… I stood ready to catch the spark when it hit.
Did we capture it? The impossible blend of gothic and glitter, of lightning and laughter? I’ll let you be the judge.
But I like to think that somewhere, deep in the archives of Tumblr, a ghost of my younger self is scrolling through the feed, pausing on this one, and smiling.
