I’ve always been fond of human shapes tied together with basic geometry. There is something very pleasing about it going all the way back to Da Vinci drawing the shape and form of a man inside of a circle. While Da Vinci may have made his work for purely scientific purposes (who really knows!?), it is undeniable the basic concept has resonated in art throughout the last several hundred, if not thousands of years.
I can’t say I am breaking any new ground with this image. It is rather standard as far as such things go. Scrunching up the form of a nude woman into a large circle. But I am fond of it anyway. This particular shape was actually found at an outdoor art exhibit on the campus of Reed College. There was a sign next to the piece that read “PLEASE TOUCH!” and since there was not a single soul around we both figured why not make our little piece of art with it. I have a feeling the artist behind the sculpture would ultimately approve. I was just thankful at the time that I had with me a camera that exposes negative with a 6x6 frame. It makes my choices in composition rather obvious.
What ended up being a bit of an accident with this image is the fact that I appear to have underdeveloped the negative a bit more than a tad. I am going to call this a happy accident however as I think the heavy shadow and the lack of detail in the background is actually nice to look at. The shape of the model really pops forward to the eye. So yaaaaay for mistakes! I was actually just talking to a friend the other day about the fact that nobody seems to own their mistakes anymore, particularly in the creative arts. Speaking purely about photography it seems modern tools like cell phones and digital cameras really encourage people to wipe away mistakes immediately (i.e. we all just delete the photo).
I’m glad with film it is impossible to fall into that trap. I might have deleted this photograph right away if I had that option.