Emily, thanks for taking the time to put together your detailed comments.
As for the amount of thought behind the composition, my old contact sheet shows that I took only three shots of that pose with the self-timer and the camera on a tripod, then went on to hand-held shots of Maria by herself. The best of the three was the second.
Looking back, I had no idea at all what I'd gotten because this was the time, long ago and far away, when digital was still some tech geek's dream.
My intent sprang from the fact that I currently was writing a novel about Maria's growing up in Italy, was (and still am) deeply in love with her, and got the idea for the pose from the famous painting by Jean Léon Gêróme entitled Pygmalion and Galetea in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which painting she and I stared at for a while, and which I photographed:
The idea of my composition being, how much of this woman was/is an invention in my fiction, how much was real?
J
On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Emily L. Ferguson <elf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
At 9:50 AM -0400 4/11/10, John Palcewski wrote:Her head seems so big in comparison to the rest of her body. I know, it's the angle and lens choice that aggravate that, but still, I'm not sure it's a good choice. And I agree, the tension in his posture is totally contrary to the tension in hers, so I'd prefer some mitigation - like leaving a shadow of what he's sitting on in the image, however ephemerally. But the most interesting thing is the angles of the feet. They look like they're standing on a sloped surface. Clearly they're not standing on their toes, but the feet aim downwards.Setting up these poses requires a lot of thought. The downturned feet, the absence of evidence that he's sitting, and the way he's grasping her make it look as though he's about to lift her up, but she's completely composed and placid as though nothing's about to happen. That creates a certain tension in the pose, but abandons a certain logic.Then there's the lace bra. I know, classically, it's a nod to the idea that concealment increases desire, but it looks like it was put there just as a nod to the concept, not because of any inevitable logic in the arrangement.As for whether it belongs in the forum - the fact that the entire female body is there, so it's possible to read the human-ness in the two people and the body is not presented as a thing, makes me much more inclined to examine the image thoughtfully.But then, as a female of a certain generation I'm really vigorously opposed to the objectification of women.And, quite honestly, I've never found the objectification of men particularly interesting either.--Emily L. Ferguson
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