Werner Lorbert – Liv Sage (2013)

Liv Sage posted this image as a part of a photo set over on her Tumblr.

I’ve excised the above image from the set and re-posted instead or reblogging for several reasons.

First: Tumblr’s layout interface can place two vertically oriented frames side by side with minimal cropping. However, any time you add more than two vertical images, the default grid presentation clips the shit out of vertical frames. Sadly, the layout ends up being a huge detriment to the images.

Second: I have (admittedly insignificant) quibbles with three of the other five images.

Third: I really want to showcase this image on its own because it’s exceptional and absolutely NOT #skinnyframebullshit.

Why? You ask. Well, my eye enters the frame in the upper left third, follows the line of angled light at a downward diagonal and then I follow the left edge of her body down to the bed. The way the wrinkles in the topsheet radiate halo-like from her head and shoulders–and this is the way I think most peoples’ eyes first enter the frame–makes her head a focal point of the image; her gaze is directed back upward and the viewer naturally follows this upward.

So why isn’t it #skinnyframebullshit? Simple: it insists upon your eye moving up and down the frame–not left to right across it.

It’s a great image because it uses this compositional logic to guide the eye toward all the treasures this image holds–as I’ve mentioned the wrinkles forming a halo, the compression of highlights, mid-tones and shadows in order to expand the range between highlight and mid-tones and mid-tones and shadows, respectively.

And it may seem like a small thing but you can clearly see both her hands and both her feet, which contributes a sensuous sinuosity to her exquisite muscle town which is not only extraordinarily flattering, it also lends a naturalism to an otherwise unnaturally contorted posture.