Tag: stretch

Source unknown – Title unknown (201X)

I have no ideas where this is from. But I am totally enamored with it.

There’s a nice conceptual bridge between the pulling the seat of a swimsuit from where it seems to ride up whenever you’re in and out of the water with the opening of the lily.

There is a symmetry between the gesture of spreading/stretching. An emphasis on texture–skin, lacquered nails, mesh, flower.

I am almost curious as to whether these clips are actually linked in the original source or if they were assembled from two disparate clips by someone with a really good eye for editing.

There’s an argument to be made they have to be from the same source. The nail polish and backgrounds–pink with the mesh, blue with the flower–that seem to suggest a similar approach to production design.

However, the light is different between the two–like not just a different color balance but a different approach. Also, the blue background in the scene clip with the lily, not the lines of vertical noise. You’re not getting anything like that in the pink background of the previous clip.

Alternately, whether or not they are from the same source: these work together because they embody a sort of Jimmy Marble meets Tommy Cash vibe that’s really a very NOW ™ aesthetic.

Source: larevueerotique

I hate making my bed. Always have. It’s simple cost-to-benefit analysis there’s no payoff that will ever justify the effort required of the task.

I feel similarly about “unwanted” body hair. Struggling to temporarily erase it takes energy, resources and time and becomes a vicious cycle.

Plus, I think body hair can be really fucking cute.

This image isn’t especially great—the camera is so close to the subject that any substantive context beyond the suggestion of a dark bedroom is lost; the flash renders her skin in tones of pink and way too white, drawing attention to her nipples. too white. (Though the graded shadow edging the outside of her left arm is delightful.)

What made me want to share this is what it made me flashback to…

It was one of those early summer days that plays like a coming attraction reel for high summer when everything is molten and shot-through with bayous of sepia toned sweat and everyone still staggering out of winter wool relishes the sheen of moist second skin as if it were the curious touch of a new lover.

I had been called down to wrangle a printer. (Pro-tip: printers are the swing sets and see-saws of the Devil’s playground meant to occupy idle hands.)

The window unit in the small office was spitting air only just less sweaty than the room.

The administrative staff had migrated to another less sweltering leaving a student to field calls. She was dressed in one of those super thin, nearly threadbare hipster graphic tees and a powder blue floral patterned loose knee-length skirt with yellow accents. It seemed like maybe three months ago she’d shaved the sides of her head to the skin, leaving violent curls to cascade darkly down the left side of her face.

She explained the problem was with the printer and went back to searching for the perfect word to fit the meter of some poetic line flickering before her on her MacBook.

The printer was rightly fucked and I wrestled with it while staring without appearing to stare.

As the printer whirred to life, she yawned and extended her hands above her head—stretching, a dizzyingly sexy fringe of hair peaked out above the edge of her sleeve.

She went back to her poem while finished up with the printer.

We ugly ducklings see the world for all it’s terrible fullness of beauty but it remains for us resolutely untouchable.

Source: gazo-ch.net

When printing something one is given two options: portrait or landscape.

As best I can tell this is a vestige of painting: vertically oriented images were favored for portraits while horizontal frames lent themselves to the panorama of landscapes.

Although arguably more of an unconscious convention in painting, this logic has been actively internalized by photographers and virtually enshrined by digital image makers.

The trouble is two-fold: the logic of photography is not interchangeable with the rules and precepts of painting (no matter how the latter interpenetrates the former). When applied to each other, these conventions produce schizoid, contradictory compositions.

Photography—and by dint digital imaging which however misguided is based upon it—has internalized the landscape orientation.  Unlike painting, I do not think this internalization has been unconscious—after all, if you have ever looked at a strip of 35mm film on a light-table there is an easy-to-see bias towards horizontal framing. (I am so accustomed to this that when I encounter vertical compositions now, I tend to tilt my head sideways when looking at them.)

Portrait orientation is not without its uses in photography and digital imaging. Unfortunately, it more often than not contributes very little to the compositional ‘sense’ of an image; serving expedience by quickly fitting the subject to the frame—instead of forcing the image maker to contemplate the discontinuity between the subject/frame and subsequently address it in a more artful manner.

The above has almost certain been cropped. But I would wager its orientation was originally vertical. (The individual responsible for the image contacted me with assurances that the image was originally horizontal but was cropped to accentuate the vertical.) And although I think horizontal framing would have worked better (EDIT: Having seen a sample of the original image, it is better), I will admit that unlike the vast majority of portrait orientations, the image maker is clearly aware of the manner in which the shift affects how the image is seen.

The frame echoes the subject’s form. On its own, that is the worst of lazy justifications; however, in this case the poses, the simple line work of what I find to be one of the sexiest tattoos I have ever seen and the narrowed view work as a visual approximation of the feeling one gets from indulging in a much needed stretch.

Further, the portrait orientation allowed the photographer to be closer to the model, lending a sense of heightened intimacy while also preserving anonymity.

Finally, I would be remiss not to admit a large part of my reason for posting this is the model’s unnerving resemblance to someone upon whom I currently have a maddening crush.

Source: jennifersvisualdiary