Eleanor Macnair renders iconic photographs in Play-Doh to celebrate 70 years of Magnum Photos

Celebrated by the New York Times, Eleanor is the founder of the ever-popular and much-lauded project, Photographs Rendered in Play-Doh, where she re-creates photographic icons in clay, and publishes the resulting sculptures online.

Eleanor has been credited with helping to raise awareness of photography globally, and her Play-Doh project has been published as a book and exhibited globally, with a new show opening at the National Portrait Gallery in London in May 2017.

A self-taught artist, Eleanor's tools are amateur – off the shelf Play-Doh, a chopping board, a scalpel and an empty wine bottle as a rolling pin. After each sculpture is shot it is disassembled and the Play-Doh returned to respective pots to be used again for future renderings.

In these particular images, created for Magnum Photos, the dark blue skyscrapers from the Elliot Erwitt became the waves in the sea in the Newsha Tavakolian, the background wall from the Chris-Steele Perkins became the handrail in the Bruce Davidson, and the yellow balloon in the Thomas Dworzak became the blonde hair of the girl in the Martin Parr. The models no longer exist and the photographs are all that remain.

Discover more of Eleanor's inspiring clay recreations at Photographs Rendered in Play-Doh. Or follow her on Instagram for daily inspiration.

If you want to find out more about Magnum Photos and its 70th anniversary, and purchase some prints from its online shop, visit shop.magnumphotos.com.

Main image: Original photograph: Subway, NYC 1980 by Bruce Davidson rendered in Play-Doh by Eleanor Macnair © Eleanor Macnair