Yesterday, I shared with you Lucky Jackson‘s work and wrote about the masks we wear.  Well, it seems like I’m on a bit of an identity-crisis train this week, so hop aboard!  I was really struck by this series of photographs by Austin artist Denise Prince, in which we find women dressed in finery, yet seeming very out of place.

These women, decked out in evening wear, seem frozen in time, not just physically, but perhaps spiritually as well.  They could be the homecoming queens whose lives began with such hopes for greatness, only to find themselves living a much more ordinary, less glamorous life than they ever expected.  Sometimes, we put such expectations on our future, don’t we?  Of course it’s perfectly normal to have dreams.  Haven’t we all, especially when we were young, dreamt of accepting an Oscar or Grammy in our evening gown or tux?  Maybe we expected our lives to turn out differently.  But no matter what turns life has taken, we can always still be the star of our own story, just perhaps less formally attired.

Want to see more of Denise Prince‘s work?  Please visit her website.

All images via the artist’s profile at Saatchi Online.