Paper House by Jessica Somers

Expectations, these are things put on us from birth. Who we are expected to be. How we treat others. What we do with our lives. Some expectations are gender specific. Some expectations find their way into our subconscious no matter how much we have been shielded from them.

Expectations, these are things put on us from birth. Who we are expected to be. How we treat others. What we do with our lives. Some expectations are gender specific. Some expectations find their way into our subconscious no matter how much we have been shielded from them.

My mother continually tried to set a specific example of womanhood and femininity for my sister and me. She was and still is, seemingly without much effort, strong, self assured and independent.

She is a nurturer but not because that is expected of her as a mother, it is simply her nature. She is beautiful but not because she tries to fit her looks into a female typology. She is comfortable in her own skin without fancy products or devices to alter hair, body, or complexion. She became a mother not because she felt she must, her aspiration to be a mother arrived with her genuine love for my father which inspired her to begin a family with him.

PaperHouse_1 Jessica Somers

PaperHouse_2 Jessica Somers

My father has also been an influence in blurring the boundaries of gender expectations. He was raised in a stoic environment where men showed little emotion, never cried nor exhibited physical expressions of love for one another. My father openly shares his sentimentality, comfortably sheds tears and willingly expresses emotion. There was no one head of household in my childhood home. My parents were partners carrying equal loads in the domestic realm.

I bring this history with me as I enter into my own domestic experience as a wife and part-time homemaker. I once believed that my upbringing would free me from the expectations, namely gender specific ones that came with these new roles. I am surprised by the desires that have been triggered by this new domesticity. The aspects of nesting, preparing nightly dinners and keeping a clean and organized home feel right. Hanging freshly washed sheets on the clothesline and removing a nourishing casserole from the oven are a normal extension of my happiness for the place I’ve arrived at in my life and the love I feel for the home my husband and I are creating.

Through the self-portrait series Paper House I investigate which of my actions are genuine desires and which actions are inherited from societal expectations common to previous generations of American women. Each photograph acts as a weigh station; a place to stop and evaluate, to measure and understand as I continue on my journey. These photographs reference my struggles, my reflections and my fears through visual metaphor. While I do not wish to take for granted my healthy relationship and stable home, I acknowledge the challenge of maintaining my personal identity amid the expectations that come with such gifts. I accept that even between the strongest of partners an unexpected earthquake can come along and knock the house down. But an earthquake can never undo the effort to sustain that which you love and endure. [Official Website]

PaperHouse_3 Jessica Somers

PaperHouse_4 Jessica SomersPaperHouse_5 Jessica SomersPaperHouse_6 Jessica Somers PaperHouse_7 Jessica Somers PaperHouse_8 Jessica SomersPaperHouse_9 Jessica Somers

PaperHouse_12 Jessica Somers

PaperHouse_10 PaperHouse_11 PaperHouse_13

PaperHouse_14

More Stories

Five minutes with Pavel Gospodinov

Five minutes with Pavel Gospodinov

I am a project and program manager in the international development and NGO Sectors but since 2009 I have been working in parallel on travel, cultural and documentary photography projects.
Photo Shoot : The Cage by Zuzu Valla

Photo Shoot : The Cage by Zuzu Valla

Photo Shoot : Performed by the model and performance artist Alex Bruni, "The Cage" is allegory of the ageing and social stereotypes attributed to it. The performance rebels against age biases, replacing them with passion, strength and beauty.
Multiexpo by Frank Machalowski

Multiexpo by Frank Machalowski

It launched in Berlin, his hometown for 40 years, but then he extended this kind of photography to other citys. For this series he use exclusive analogue film material in both dimensions (35mm and 6x6) and only b&w.
https://www.dodho.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/bannerpr.jpg

We invite you to participate in the first edition of the Portrait Photography Awards. Our call is open to any artistic interpretation of portrait photography.

https://www.dodho.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BAnImage.jpg

ImageRights provides intelligent image search and copyright enforcement services to photo agencies and professional photographers worldwide.

https://www.dodho.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/mono2022.jpg

The best 100 images along with the winning images published in the yearly book “Monochromatic – Best Photographers of 2022”

https://www.dodho.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/banner24.jpg

Call For Entries #24 | After 23 editions and more than 100 published photographers, our print edition has proven to be a simply effective promotional channel.

Final days of Georgian nomads by Natela Grigalashvili

Final days of Georgian nomads by Natela Grigalashvili

Mountainous Adjara is one of the most distinguished regions of Georgia. The traditions and the old ways of life have been preserved to this day in this area. The isolation and alienation of inhabitants of this mountainous area has been an ongoing issue for a long time.
Selfhood by Vicky Martin

Selfhood by Vicky Martin

The series "Selfhood" was in part inspired by the proverb "The Eyes Are The Window To The Soul" and a desire to challenge the need to see the eyes within a portrait.
Urban Photography; Neither Horse nor Tiger by Alnis Stakle

Urban Photography; Neither Horse nor Tiger by Alnis Stakle

How does one tells about a place that only exists in imagination? Everything there seems to be just like everywhere else – estranged high-rise neighbourhoods
Chatting with Denis Esakov

Chatting with Denis Esakov

I'm trying to see the world through architecture, through the sorting of reality. I appropriate the space through arranging it on individual buildings, scenes, architectural details.
A Visionary Journey by Massimiliano Balò

A Visionary Journey by Massimiliano Balò

It is my creative and visionary journey of my life where through the photography I captured the momentum reversing my unconscious feelings and visions of the world.
Italian celebration; Ceri Race by Giuseppe Cardoni

Italian celebration; Ceri Race by Giuseppe Cardoni

The "Corsa dei Ceri" (Ceri Race) is one of the oldest Italian rite celebration. It is a solemn act inspired by the devotion of the Eugubines to their Bishop Ubaldo Baldassini, since May 1160, the year of his death.
The lost town by Olga Kulaga

The lost town by Olga Kulaga

In the 1930-es in USSR most Mologa-Sheksna interfluve area got caught in a flowage during the construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station.
ADD, Photography, Let’s Eat! Where the Hell Are My Keys?

ADD, Photography, Let’s Eat! Where the Hell Are My Keys?

My grades in school were always D’s and F’s.  Mostly because I didn’t go to classes that bored me.  I would go to the library and read instead. I was a voracious reader, and I credit that with my survival into adulthood.
Suburban areas of Russia by Igor Askarov

Suburban areas of Russia by Igor Askarov

This work was made during the last year. I explored several suburban areas of Russia. All of them are 300-400 km away from Moscow. Most of the time I went by car.
Conceptual fine art photographer; 365 self portraits of David Talley

Conceptual fine art photographer; 365 self portraits of David Talley

My work as an artist aims to create entirely new worlds with impossible concepts. I want to show the emotion that every person on the planet experiences,
Steel City Serenade by James Kezman

Steel City Serenade by James Kezman

Architecturally, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania punches above its weight. For a mid-sized American city, it has a rich agglomeration of fascinating buildings, largely thanks to the city’s storied industrial past.
Son of a dog by Giuliano Reggiani

Son of a dog by Giuliano Reggiani

The idea for this portfolio was born one day a few years ago, while I was in the bar of the small town where I live, when I heard some elderly people pointing out a man who had just entered with the nickname "figlio di un cane". 
The landscape photography with Torsten Muehlbacher

The landscape photography with Torsten Muehlbacher

The landscape photography is one of my favorites. In my homeland Tyrol there are numerous motives, the mountain scenery is a gorgeous setting . The backpack packed i hike early in the morning to the mountains to catch the best light .
Interview with Panos & Mary, The new documentalists

Interview with Panos & Mary, The new documentalists

Panos Mary is a photographic duo, and this is not their only unusual feat. These Greek islanders belong to the new documentalists. They portray realities through poetic images in pastel color fantasies.
Boat Hull by Michele Dragonetti

Boat Hull by Michele Dragonetti

My recent work has been focused primarily on my Boat Hull series, which began in the marinas of Montauk, NY where I was drawn to boats that were out of the water and in need of repair.
Mental Health Center for Holocaust Survivors by Gili Yaari

Mental Health Center for Holocaust Survivors by Gili Yaari

Shaar Menashe Mental Health Center for Holocaust survivors in Pardes Hanna, Israel, managed by the Israeli Association for Public Health, is a home for about 70 Holocaust survivors.

Featured Stories

Erik Johansson ; An Amazing World

Erik Johansson ; An Amazing World

Erik Johansson is a photographer and retoucher from Sweden based in Prague, Czech Republic and Sweden. He is working on both personal and commissioned projects with clients all around the world. Erik Johansson doesn't capture moments, he captures ideas.
Self Portraits by Isabella Bubola

Self Portraits by Isabella Bubola

For Isabella Bubola, a 25 year old applied arts graduate, true passion lies in fine art and portrait photography. She began shooting whatever was around her (including herself) when she was eleven and got her first digital camera without the back screen. Ever since, her camera has been a most faithful companion.
Woman by Zuzu Valla

Woman by Zuzu Valla

They say,Life is a fightíí and I´ve learned how to fight in the ring of life from my parents. Tibor Sopor, multiple boxing champion of Czechoslovakia and my mum who gave me all her love.
Sacred destinations : Borobudur by Aga Szydlik

Sacred destinations : Borobudur by Aga Szydlik

As the first rays of light break through the thick mist covering the ground, slowly and gracefully, Borobudur temple comes into the view. I close my eyes, deeply breathing in scent of jungle and lyrical call of Adhan, calling faithful to a Morning Prayer.
Iceland by Ignacio Heras Castan

Iceland by Ignacio Heras Castan

The script of this sequence tries to convey the isolated way of life of many of the inhabitants of the Island, the different structures of houses, ships, churches that mix with the nature so characteristic of Iceland
Aryan Pramudito : Jakarta through my phone

Aryan Pramudito : Jakarta through my phone

It was on sunny afternoon of March 2015. That was my first time I fall for street photography. It was a Shumay food hawker made me fall in love.
Berlin bhf. by Anna Tihanyi

Berlin bhf. by Anna Tihanyi

Berlin bhf. (bahnhof) is a staged series that is rooted in intimate issues of my personal life, through which I could emphasize Berlin being a transitory place, a habitat of the passengers.
Looking Out from Within by Julia Fullerton-Batten

Looking Out from Within by Julia Fullerton-Batten

During the days prior to the pandemic I was ultra-busy planning a photographic shoot with a large team of people, assistants, stylists, hair and make-up team, prop stylists, set designers etc.
Fishshot by Javier Corso

Fishshot by Javier Corso

Fishshot is a documentary project about loneliness, emotional isolation, and sentimental repression in Finnish society. These problems go further when the people start drinking to fight against them. The excessive consumption of alcohol is present in more than half cases of suicide, homicide and gender violence.
City Space by Clarissa Bonet

City Space by Clarissa Bonet

City Space is an ongoing photographic exploration of the urban environment and my perception of it. I am interested in the physical space of the city and its emotional and psychological impact on the body.
Wildlife portraits by Nick Dale

Wildlife portraits by Nick Dale

I wanted to be a photographer when I was 15, but my mother said I could always take it up later – so that was that for 30 years! I ended up reading English at Oxford and working as a strategy consultant for a few years
Monologue about Chernobyl by Raúl Moreno

Monologue about Chernobyl by Raúl Moreno

A few kilometers from Chernobyl, there is a radioactive atmosphere that can not be seen but can intuit it. Food contaminated by Cesium 137 and Strontium, these inhabitants consume daily making radioactive isotopes are deposited in their bodies gradually.
Dreamland; Tale of the blue pear by Nikolina Petolas

Dreamland; Tale of the blue pear by Nikolina Petolas

Tale of the blue pear; Nikolina Petolas’s project was selected and published in our print edition 16. The series present a search for our own essence, which is embodied in the shape of a pear, in different color and sizes, which can be found in the majority of her artworks.
Ethiopia; The art of disappearing by Harry Fisch

Ethiopia; The art of disappearing by Harry Fisch

The trucks continually roll past the roads that lead to their villages, spitting out so much dust that people living in the villages can no longer breathe. 
Transylvanian shepherds by Kerekes Istvan

Transylvanian shepherds by Kerekes Istvan

The region of Transylvania is known for the scenery of its Carpathian landscape and its rich history. The Western world commonly associates Transylvania with vampires because of the influence of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" and the many films the tale inspired.
Claudio Rasano ; PRESEVO, Serbia, border to Macedonia

Claudio Rasano ; PRESEVO, Serbia, border to Macedonia

5 days ago, the big truck arrived in Presevo with donations. Hans from our team, Claudio the photographer and I had gone there to help on-site.We already knew what is happening there.

Trending Stories

Frozen by Romain Tornay

Frozen by Romain Tornay

Queen Nature simultaneously revealed two rare phenomena. On the one hand, the temperature remained below the freezing point for fourteen days, which was no longer measured in a quarter of a century.
Unique moments by Monika Koclajda

Unique moments by Monika Koclajda

I like to be in their company and watch their emotions and behavior. I do not even know when these two passions merged into one.
Portraits from the wilderness by Graeme Purdy

Portraits from the wilderness by Graeme Purdy

Portraits from the wilderness was selected and published in our print edition 21. My photography has been inspired by nature, wild animals and my love of the outdoors. More recently, I am driven to help protect our wildlife and wild places.
Female Fight Club Berlin; Lady Warriors by Marcello Perino

Female Fight Club Berlin; Lady Warriors by Marcello Perino

On the outskirt of Berlin there is a small garage where few women meet each other for fighting. It's called "Female Fight Club Berlin", and it's been established in 2010 by Anna Konda, and Red Devil.
Africa by Timo Heiny

Africa by Timo Heiny

I try to hold tight on my photographs what I felt during my journeys, the intuition of a nativeness. Maybe it is the mystical idea from the beginning of humans, an original relationship between human and nature
Five minutes with Le Turk

Five minutes with Le Turk

Le Turk was born one night simply when listening by chance to Bach's Saint John Passion, nice and loud in headphones.Nothing else matters than that major awakening, that ground-breaking moment.
Thailand; Boxing Child by Martin Gros

Thailand; Boxing Child by Martin Gros

Also known as Thai boxing, Muay Thai is considered as the national sport in Thailand. Organized around monetary bet, the winners are rewarded by fame and fortune and successful fighters are being treated like celebrities.
Altai by Nadezhda Krylova

Altai by Nadezhda Krylova

Nadezhda Krylova (Areshina) was born in 1986 in St. Petersburg. She studied Documentary Photography at the School of Modern Photography Docdocdoc in St. Petersburg between 2019 and 2021.
Memory and photography; Synapses by Thanos Savvidis

Memory and photography; Synapses by Thanos Savvidis

Deriving from the Greek word 'synapsis' meaning "junction", synapses are small gaps between neurons where they can pass messages one to another.  Synapses are key to the brain's function, especially when it comes to learning and memory
Hidden Souls – Street Photography by Omri Shomer

Hidden Souls – Street Photography by Omri Shomer

It is said that the eyes are the window to our souls. Studies show, through their eyes, it is possible to know everything about a person. When people are sad or worried
Nat Wilkins : Dealing with the dead, the troajan of Tana Toraja

Nat Wilkins : Dealing with the dead, the troajan of Tana Toraja

ncient traditions die-hard in the highlands of Tana Toraja, a regency of the South Sulawesi Province of Indonesia. Devoutly Christian, the Troajan are proud of their religion; in 2013 they were celebrating a centenary of Christianity here.

Other Stories

stay in touch
Join our mailing list and we'll keep you up to date with all the latest stories, opportunities, calls and more.
We use Sendinblue as our marketing platform. By Clicking below to submit this form, you acknowledge that the information you provided will be transferred to Sendinblue for processing in accordance with their terms of use
We’d love to
Thank you for subscribing!
Submission
Dodho Magazine accepts submissions from emerging and professional photographers from around the world.
Their projects can be published among the best photographers and be viewed by the best professionals in the industry and thousands of photography enthusiasts. Dodho magazine reserves the right to accept or reject any submitted project. Due to the large number of presentations received daily and the need to treat them with the greatest respect and the time necessary for a correct interpretation our average response time is around 5/10 business days in the case of being accepted.
- Between 10/30 images of your best images, in case your project contains a greater number of images which are part of the same indivisible body of work will also be accepted. You must send the images in jpg format to 1200px and 72dpi and quality 9. (No borders or watermarks)
- A short biography along with your photograph. (It must be written in the third person)
- Title and full text of the project with a minimum length of 300 words. (Texts with lesser number of words will not be accepted)
This is the information you need to start preparing your project for its presentation
To send it, you must compress the folder in .ZIP format and use our Wetransfer channel specially dedicated to the reception of works. Links or projects in PDF format will not be accepted. All presentations are carefully reviewed based on their content and final quality of the project or portfolio. If your work is selected for publication in the online version, it will be communicated to you via email and subsequently it will be published.
Contact
How can we help? Got an idea or something you'd like share? Please use the adjacent form, or contact contact@dodho.com
Thank You. We will contact you as soon as possible.
Submission
Dodho Magazine accepts submissions from emerging and professional photographers from around the world.
Their projects can be published among the best photographers and be viewed by the best professionals in the industry and thousands of photography enthusiasts. Dodho magazine reserves the right to accept or reject any submitted project. Due to the large number of presentations received daily and the need to treat them with the greatest respect and the time necessary for a correct interpretation our average response time is around 5/10 business days in the case of being accepted. This is the information you need to start preparing your project for its presentation.
To send it, you must compress the folder in .ZIP format and use our Wetransfer channel specially dedicated to the reception of works. Links or projects in PDF format will not be accepted. All presentations are carefully reviewed based on their content and final quality of the project or portfolio. If your work is selected for publication in the online version, it will be communicated to you via email and subsequently it will be published.
Get in Touch
How can we help? Got an idea or something you'd like share? Please use the adjacent form, or contact contact@dodho.com
Thank You. We will contact you as soon as possible.