stillcrazyafteralltheseyears6 – Untitled (2018)

When I see this image, I can’t shake the notion that photography and digital imagining can arguably be reduced to questions regarding contrast–e.g. inclusion vs exclusion (framing), luminosity vs. opacity, near vs. far, etc.

More directly linked with this image–and it’s genius–is the quintessential question of depth vs flatness.

No matter whether it’s photography or digital imaging, the result involves compression. Spatial references are reduced to micro-fine layers in an emulsion or an array of pixels. In other words: three dimensions are rendered in two.

Over time certain modes of visual shorthand have become codified–e.g. with skintone we have notions interpolated based on the Zone System or the red before blue before green rule of thumb.

As best I can tell these tendencies are meant to be aesthetically pleasing but the why they are attractive has to do with stylistics–the notion of skin as smooth and/or soft. (And this is more of a psychological prejudice than a factual one–I mean look at the back of your hand up close and it looks like a muddy landscape that has been sun baked until it takes on the appearance of craquelure.)

In other words, there is a notion that as far as Caucasian models are concerned there is a preference for either an alabaster or apricot tone–an ersatz synesthesia by consensus where tonality or color is in and of itself supposed to be suggestive of texture.

As a synesthete, I am constantly befuddled by this knee-jerk approach. I mean: show me an image of a swatch of twill pictured under strong light and I can actually feel the texture of the material on my fingertips.

Here though it almost works and how it works is by taking a step back to consider how photography/image making is about contrast and then juxtaposing something which easily conveys textural information (water) against something which does not easily convey textural information (skin).

Simple, elegant and something I’ll be trying to figure out how to apply to my own work going forward.