Featured Fifty Fine Art: Anthropomorphic Mannequins

Ron Keller graduated from the Navy School of Photography in 1972 and finished a BA in fine art photography in 1981 at New Mexico State University. His work has appeared in a number of publications, among them American Photo and Photographer's Forum. Ron is two years from retirement with the State of New Mexico Space History Museum. "Anthropomorphic Mannequins" is part of the museum's collection.

I work as the photographer/exhibit designer for the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Part of my job is to create high-resolution images of our museum artifacts. "Anthropomorphic Mannequins" was made several years ago and is a photo of the actual high-speed, test track dummies used for research at White Sands Missile Range. These are life-sized anthropomorphic mannequins that simulate actual human traits. They were used to develop seat belts used in cars and aircraft. This image was made the old-fashioned way, with a 4x5" view camera, on Tri-X pan film. The final negative was scanned at high resolution for digital reproduction. The image is a 20x24" silver gelatin fibre print.

Anthropomorphic Mannequins