photo stories - christian anwander

It's great when disciplines borrow from each other.  Here, taking
inspiration from H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man.  Photographed
by Christian Anwander for M Le Monde.

...the voice was indisputable. It continued to swear with that
breadth and variety that distinguishes the swearing of a
cultivated man.  - H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

from unexpected places - beauty photography

We all know the skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair 
as black as ebony.  Appearances are powerful, even the glittering
ways they can be described, and some rise to icon status like that of
Snow White.  Of course, a character's appearance doesn't have to be
described in such a sharp way, but sometimes doing this can serve a
story.  So what amazing things mark your characters, fantastical,
science fiction-style, or human?  Does he or she have silver at the
inner edges of their eyes?  Gold eyelashes?  Ever-puckered lips?

She seemed, in the drenching light, to be made of gold, honey,
cornsilk; bees, drawn to her scent, clung to the fat braid down her
back.  She covered her face with her hands and shook her head
violently.  Drops of gold fell between her fingers.

- Patricia A. McKillup, In the Forests of Serre

By Boris Ovini, Dahse Mag

Vogue Nippon

the well written - angela carter

She gained entry into the world by a mysterious loophole in its metaphysics
and, during her kiss, she sucked his breath from his lungs so that her own
bosom heaved with it.

She sank her teeth into his throat and drained him.  He did not have the time
to make a sound.  When he was empty, he slipped straight out of her embrace
down to her feet with a dry rustle, as of a cast armful of dead leaves, and there
he sprawled on the floorboards, as empty, useless and bereft of meaning as his
own tumbled shawl.

She tugged impatiently at the strings which moored her and out they came in
bunches from her head, her arms and her legs.  She stripped them off her
fingertips and stretched out her long, white hands, flexing and unflexing them
again and again.  She stamped her elegant feet to make the new blood flow
more freely there.

- Angela Carter, "The Loves of Lady Purple"

Pop S/S 2007, Mert & Marcus

from unexpected places - peculiar objects

Each of these has a story...  the first could be the house of a traveling gnome,
the second the shoes of a futuristic mistress in an urban fantasy, then tagging
rings in a science fiction adventure, an enigmatic instrument that is the
subject of a historical fiction piece similar to The Red Violin, then a head
dress in a hybrid science fiction/fantasy, an instrument of a culture long
extinct, and last, a wicked witch's disguise or a robot's masquerade attire.

Or whatever else you dream up.

Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.

- Albert Einstein

Gnome house, a blogger called it

Designed by Aoi Kotsuhiroi

photo stories - luke gilford

This is a spread photographed by Luke Gilford for V Magazine #79.
Looks like great inspiration for some short and eccentric speculative fiction to me.
Enjoy.

photo stories - vogue's edith wharton

Vogue US' Wharton social circle reimagined for today:

Actress Juno Temple as Edith's secretary
Writer Jeffrey Eugenides as Henry James
Actor Elijah Wood as Edith's chauffeur
Actor Jack Huston as Morton Fullerton
Sculptor Daniel Chester French as artist Nate Lowman
Actress Marnie Gummer as landscaper Beatrix Farrand
Writer Junot Diaz as diplomat Walter Barry
Writer Jonathan Safran Foer as architect Ogden Codman Jr.
Actor Max Minghella as painter Maxfield Parrish  (Source)

Which famous writer's social circle do you wish you were part of?

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or
the mirror that reflects it.

- Edith Wharton

photo stories - crazy fashion in vogue uk

If you remember in Hunger Games, the elite of society were described
to wear elaborate costumes and crazy makeup.  If you're writing a story
with a similar element, fashion photography can be a great inspiration.
See below for an example.

Photographed by Mario Testino in Vogue UK May 2008.

photo stories - greg lotus

Sometimes an environment can almost become a character in itself.
A flying bed, a wealthy grandmother's lakehouse, a fur coat filled wardrobe.
Maybe a bathtub...

It's interesting to think about what kind of short stories could pop up out of
the imagination from forcing yourself to stay in one location for most of the
plot. For whatever strange, creepy, odd, fantastical reason.

By Greg Lotus, Vogue Italia in March of 2010