We all wear masks. Not just the literal kind, but the ones we craft every day. Masks of persona, identity, and survival. Masks that protect us, hide us, elevate us, and sometimes…consume us. This story is a confession, a myth, and a revelation all at once. It is a raw account of how I created a fictional character, a breathing myth that blurred the lines between truth and fabrication, art and life.
I am an artist, a photographer, a storyteller.
For years, I worked as a street photographer, capturing candid portraits and raw stories that most people overlook. My lens captured the lives of those living rough, those on the edges. I documented truth, beauty, and struggle all at once. But beyond photography, I’ve written about life on the city streets of Phoenix Arizona. Where I was born in 1987.
Over the past 12 months, I’ve lost over 80 pounds and changed how I presented myself to the world. This was more than a health journey, it was a strategic reinvention. The way people treated me shifted drastically. Suddenly, I was seen differently by family, friends, and strangers alike. I was learning firsthand that identity is performative. That appearances matter. That wearing the right mask, not just figuratively, but physically…could open doors. This realization would become the foundation for everything that followed.
Welcome to the world where identity is fluid, and reality is negotiable.
Part I: The Wake in the Fall
I had met a female artist at a local community art center. I proposed that we collaborate. However, as the project unfolded, the relationship became complicated. Differences in perspective and communication led to tension. Trust faltered, and I made the difficult decision to step back from the collaboration. In the wake of this fallout, I created a fictional persona, an extension of my artistic exploration. This persona became a tool in the unfolding narrative.
Born as a concept, an idea, a tone, an email signature. But she needed a face. Early on, I had sent an image to the community center: a random photo I found on Google of a woman in a ski mask.
I didn’t know her name. But she had full lips, long lashes, she embodied a sensual, powerful and mysterious aura. That image became the visual foundation. Unknowingly, this stranger became the prototype for a character I was about to cast in real life.
Part II: Concept to Reality
After being rejected by several modeling agencies in Arizona that I had approached with the masked model concept.
I turned to Craigslist, where I posted open casting calls, filtering for that same energy and look of the image I had ripped from Google.
Dozens replied. Some were clearly chasing clout, attracted to the legitimacy my website projected. What they didn’t know was that I wasn’t backed by any real funding or agency. The “brand” they were responding to was a digital illusion, financed by something as raw as a needle in a broke artist’s arm.
Sifting through many Craigslist ad replies, a model who looked uncannily like the Google image. Same luscious lips. She became Danielle in the flesh. Soon after, I walked into an Ulta and picked out Danielle’s lashes and press-on nails. Then photographed the Craigslist model in my own custom ski masks I had ordered from China, embroidered with my brand’s name.
Every detail was calculated. Every pose, provocative and potent. She didn't know the full scope of the character she was inhabiting. She thought she was modeling for a brand. She didn’t realize she was the brand.
And when I published those photos online, Danielle became undeniably real. She had a face. She had a story. She had a digital footprint. I even teased this very project on my website…an image of me, shirtless and a release date.
It was a baited contradiction: a female name, a male body. A reveal hiding in plain sight.
Part III: The Vessel
Danielle wasn’t just a character I invented, she was a vessel. Before Danielle, I had tried being myself. I had tried being honest, transparent, humble. None of it worked. No one saw me.
So I gave the world a mask.
Danielle became a fiction people respected more than my truth. Through her, I built an entire brand universe, styled websites, photo shoots, teased releases. Even the Craigslist model I hired believed the illusion. She thought I was successful. She had no idea the money I paid her came from plasma donation, not brand revenue. Other models began reaching out too, trying to collaborate, trying to be part of whatever they thought Danielle was. They didn’t see desperation, instability, or invention. They saw legitimacy.
I never said I was wealthy. But I never said I wasn’t. I let them draw their own conclusions based on what I presented. I lied about being on business trips. I ghostwrote emails from Danielle that dripped with confidence and poise. I played both sides of the performance; creator and creation, sender and signature. It wasn’t about scamming people. It was about surviving in an ecosystem that only rewards perceived value. Danielle proved how belief, when engineered well enough…becomes currency.
Power. Access. Authority.
She was the product of what it takes to be seen when being yourself isn’t enough.
This isn’t an apology.
It’s not a justification.
It’s a confession,
only the confession itself is part of the artwork.
Everything I did, every lie, every image, every email; was a deliberate act of construction. Danielle wasn’t a mistake or an accident. She was built with intention. I curated her into existence the same way a director casts a role or a brand launches a campaign. I didn’t just create Danielle, I launched her, marketed her, layered her with narrative, aesthetic, and ambiguity.
Part IV: Perception is Reality
This paper is not a standard essay. It’s a meta-performance. The photos, the blurred emails, the custom ski masks, marketing, fake lashes, the Craigslist shoots, all of it becomes material for a visual confessional.
D.A.N.I.E.L.L.E.
Delusions As Narrative, Identity Engineered, Leveraging Lure & Elegance.
This acronym isn’t just clever branding, it’s the thesis.
Identity is constructed.
Lure is strategic.
Elegance is performed.
Let me be clear: I’m not naive. I knew exactly what I was doing when I made Danielle.
I knew I was manipulating perception. I knew I was leveraging ambiguity, sexuality and fantasy.
I knew I was lying
and I did it anyway,
because this wasn’t just a stunt.
It was survival.
When I sent emails under Danielle’s name, I knew it wasn’t ethical. When I used a model’s body to give Danielle a face, I knew I was casting a myth. When I paid her with plasma donation money, I understood the irony of a broke person playing God. But all of that is part of what makes the project work.
It’s not clean.
It’s not pretty.
It’s real.
Part V: The Man
I had Danielle tattooed on my chest with full lips, lashes, a ski mask. That image became the blueprint: it shaped the casting, the styling, the entire persona.
I built a mythology and stepped into it: to survive a world that only listens when you're already somebody.
This isn’t a manifesto.
It’s a mirror.
It’s for anyone who’s ever had to wear a mask to be heard. For anyone who’s had to become someone else, just to be accepted as themselves. For the broke artist who became a myth, because reality never was enough.
This is the curtain call,
This is living art,
This is bled for,
This is mythos,
I am Danielle Reyes.
All photography by ©Dope Edit & ©Dope Edit World is protected from copying, scanning, reproduction, enhancement or manipulation by Federal Law.
