For this image, Rutherford wanted to achieve "the look of a plastic mannequin . . . a Stepford housewife, but wearing see-through latex instead of a cooking apron and '50s dress. She looks confident and powerful because of her attire and gaze, yet helpless because of her abandoned surroundings," says Rutherford. "This contradiction is what I find sexy about the photograph." —Marla Rutherford

The subject of Abandoned Housewife, 2005, is Darenzia, a fetish model from New York City; the photograph was taken four hours outside of Los Angeles toward Las Vegas. As noted in reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow (Aperture, 2006), Marla Rutherford's photographs depict a surreal universe in which people from the worlds of sadomasochism and fetishism are posed in ordinary surroundings. This juxtaposition brings the strange and banal together, and allows viewers to feel more at ease when faced with people whose practices are seen as deviant. In her brightly colored images, Rutherford uses a style close to advertising photography, in order to seduce the viewer. Her portraits of people from America's counterculture are brought out into the light of day and treated as commonplace.