03 - Alli Schaaff: T-Shirt Designs

I'm completely freaked out by spiders: I don't like their long, hairy legs; I don't like the way they move; but most of all, I don't like their eyes. When I see a spider's face with eight gigantic gaping black eyes staring back at me, I experience a shuddering gut reaction that I simply cannot ignore.


As a photographer, I explored my fear (and tried to overcome it) by shooting a spider I found outside my house one day. Here's one of my favorites from the shoot:

Shooting and editing these photos helped me get over the phobia... a little. But I began to wonder why I was so instinctively shaken by a spider's eyes. What was it about a simple pattern of circles that could inspire so much fear? So this hatched an idea - would others recognize a spider's eyes - or feel that same fear - if faced with simply the pattern of circles? A mere suggestion of the face? How much could the brain fill in with imagination, and how much of my gut reaction was a biological response to a recognized image?

Thus, my t-shirt ideas (a few design options):

- Alli Schaaff