Mistress Of Puppets

I titled this one Mistress of Puppets. A nod, of course, to the Metallica anthem where the master pulls the strings, controls the fate of others—merciless, mechanical, in charge. But in this frame, the dynamic is flipped.

The puppet isn’t controlled. She’s in control.

Shot through a shop window, the mannequin doesn’t stand, she sits—curled into herself in an oddly introspective pose. Not a gesture of command, but of knowing. Dressed in soft florals, faceless but not neutral. The glass between us acts like a screen, a membrane, a boundary between worlds—hers synthetic, silent, and oddly powerful; ours fast, distracted, and easily led.

Because really, who’s manipulating whom?

She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t move. But every passerby glances her way. Every choice—fabric, pose, tilt of the wrist—is calculated to guide behaviour, to spark desire. And we follow. We imitate. The mannequin sells a fiction, and we animate it.

There’s something haunting in her posture. She looks pensive, as if reflecting on the humans she governs from behind the glass. Like she’s aware of the irony: that the puppet, though lifeless, shapes what the living do.

Master of Puppets was all thrash and power. Mistress of Puppets is quiet domination. Subtle strings. And we’re already dancing.