Greg McDonald on the Campy Magic Behind Horrified B-Movie Victims

I take photos because I’m no good at playing the guitar. If I were, I would’ve formed a band a long time ago and driven from gig to gig in my (now sold) black ’80s cargo van. So, I settled. A camera could be fun, I guess. Photography, for me, is an extension of filmmaking.

It’s just another avenue for storytelling. Telling stories is the best way for me to communicate and connect with the world. My aim is to create stories through character, composition, environment, and color—elements I try to incorporate to shape a story in an image.

I’ve always been intrigued by the artifice and histrionics of acting styles from low-budget sci-fi and horror B-movies of the 1950s, ’60s, and earlier. A blonde dame puts her hands up to her head and lets out a primordial scream, shaking her head in a close-up as the giant lizard man approaches her.

The non-stop mugging of a grimacing astronaut in a Halloween-grade costume being zapped with a laser by the bug-eyed Martian. The contorted facial acrobatics of the scared scientist as he battles a 2,000-year-old, extinct, dead fish that he accidentally brought back to life.

There is something about being so fake, yet totally believable in an unbelievable way, that I just love. Once, when casting a project, an actor had on his résumé “fleeing citizen” as a film credit. I could not have been more impressed.

When I found the set of Horrified B-Movie Victims toy figurines years ago in an odd shop in Burbank, California, I had to buy it. The figurines are crudely made, cheaply painted, and feature big lips and oversized white eyes with black pupils, yet are posed with inspiration—the perfect characters to bring to life and base a photo shoot on.

It completely depends on the competition. I try to spend a decent amount of time reviewing previous winners and finalists to get an idea of what the judges like. I also thoroughly read all the available information about the competition and carefully explore the website. The key is to submit photos that best fit the contest or exhibition.

I came to photography through acting and filmmaking. I was an actor, then wrote and produced a short script. After that, I was hooked on creating work rather than acting in someone else’s project. I loved acting, but creating my own work is a better way for me to connect with the world.

Photography with people — photography that reveals something about human nature, whether serious or silly — is what I respond to most.

I think my go-to camera setup changes depending on the project. I mainly use a current mirrorless camera, but I’ve also used disposable film cameras.

In my winning work, I want the viewer to feel a release from fear.

The most challenging part of my series was getting the models to find poses that conveyed both emotion and movement. They had to express themselves so the viewer could sense the imminent danger.

Film directors have been my biggest influence in photography, such as Federico Fellini, the Coen Brothers, Yorgos Lanthimos, Alexander Payne, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Pedro Almodóvar.

My advice is not to listen to advice—do what feels right for you and your work. Develop interests in many areas, and only take on projects that personally mean something to you.

Take a deep interest in as many subjects as possible. Reflect on what moves you, and act on those feelings.

Editing and post-processing are the final steps in my workflow. The extent of my editing varies depending on the project and the specific shot—sometimes it's minimal, and other times I spend more time making adjustments.

I see it as a helpful tool for reducing the time it takes to complete certain tasks, like making selections or removing small, unimportant items in the frame. I don’t use it for any one-click editing—like hitting a button to analyze the entire image or applying automatic skin retouching.

I usually find those results horrid, and to me, that kind of AI is completely useless. The one generative AI feature I do use occasionally is to straighten a horizon and have AI fill in the missing corners to maintain the same pixel dimensions. Even then, the areas filled are minimal, typically just extending elements like sky, water, or land.

Sophia Loren—or anywhere in Italy in the 1960s. If I could transport myself into a Fellini movie during his prime and just shoot away, that’s what I imagine heaven would be like.