HAMILTON, Ohio — A 9-year-old has gone viral for her Leibovitz-level portraits of a dead cicada depicted in various everyday and not-so-everyday settings.
Millie Staudt arranged impressive scenes for the cicada carcass using Legos and other small model toys.
"Recently discovered that my kid (age 9) has been staging mini photo shoots with deceased cicadas from our yard, and I thought y’all would appreciate her artistic expression," Millie's mom, Miranda Staudt, wrote in a June 4 Facebook post.
By Friday afternoon, that post had been shared more than 32,000 times.
"You’re welcome," Miranda Staudt jokingly wrote in the post.
The 9-year-old gives the lifeless cicada the Weekend at Bernie's treatment in a re-creation of an ice cream shop, a tea party, working from home and more in more than 20 photos:
Millie said she's been staging miniature photoshoots for a long time, but with a living subject: her hamster.
"I made him a little birthday party for his first birthday and stuff," she said. "And I've just been doing it for a long time like setting up little stuff and taking pictures."
She was inspired by a children's book called "The Secret Life of Squirrels," which shows wild squirrels climbing and playing in miniature restaurants, school buses, ice cream parlors and other everyday locations.
"Millie has always been like this," her mother said. "I mean, she's been the kid that like will take a bag of googly eyes and put it all over the food in the fridge. That's her and her personality."
