Examining her face for signs of beauty in the midst of ugliness, Milligan’s Snow White confronts the reality of aging and mortality. “The stains on the wallpaper, the bricks falling off, the dilapidation behind her set up a dichotomy and question the idea of body image,” explained Milligan. She found the room in her father’s law office in Bucyrus, Ohio, an historic building (once used as a bathhouse in a hotel frequented by Al Capone).

In each photograph, the protagonist wears the same nightgown, a garment Milligan picked up at a Goodwill store years before she had conceptualized Reality Tales. “ I like collecting things that hold a nostalgic quality,” she said.