To celebrate their 50th anniversary, Austin’s classical radio KMFA launched a new campaign On Key, Offbeat, celebrating eccentric Austenites who enjoy the station. Austin advertising agency Archer Malmo enlisted Randal Ford to shoot a series of photographs, one of which was recently selected for the Communication Arts 2017 Photo Annual in the Advertising Category.

The image, unofficially titled “Dolls” features a room filled with collectible dolls (some valued at several thousand dollars) provided by the members of the Austin Doll Collectors Society. Member Mary McKenzie volunteered to represent the club in the photograph.

Randal’s team built a set, which was basically just a chair, rug, and shelves, in the doll club’s regular meeting location and filled it with dozens and dozens of dolls—princesses and ballerinas, Little Red Riding Hood and an Eskimo, hyper-realistic babies and life-size boy in a baseball uniform.

“The large dolls—they were the size of a toddler—standing in the back and a baby doll in a white dress sitting in the front on the floor were especially unsettling. And then we have this perfectly normal woman sitting in the chair, drinking her tea, and listening of course to KMFA. The effect was somewhere between eccentric and creepy,” said Randal.

“It’s the juxtaposition of Mary’s nonchalant nature and this unusual world of doll collecting that makes the image so shocking. It was just one of those really interesting, weird, and wonderful portrait opportunities.”

Thank you Archer Malmo for the great opportunity!