Torsion

It is very hard to critique an image like this. I've always said about my own art, "If there is something 'wrong' in it, I can find it right away, but on those rare occasions where I can't find something wrong, I couldn't tell you what exactly is right."

This is one of those images. Within it, everything adds up, and fits, to such an extent that the whole is much more than the sum of its parts. I can try to be more specific. To begin with, the model's body just seems wonderful to me, long and lean, displaying very concrete musculature, and yet soft in places as well. The position, the contortions it is going through are extreme, and yet somehow, within this image it does not seem out of place to me, almost natural.

Then how this model is lit and shot, the background so undefined to put complete focus on the figure and the play of light of it. Barely a floor from the shadow of the arm, is there a wall behind? is it just emptiness? On the left side, where does the figure stop and the ground begin? the rhythms of the vertebrae, the ribs, the sinuous curves, sharp angles, small details in the knuckles. It seems the choices made in lighting, distance, background, depth of field, and exposure perfectly accentuate the figure.

And this figure, this body, seems at the same time, so alien and so human. At first glance it is strangely almost unrecognizable, as folded as it is, in such light. then it may through past experience be read as down, sad, kneeling over, head on the ground perhaps hiding from view. And yet there is a sense of strength that belies this, the force within the wrist, pushing against the floor, the potential wound up in the spine and its obvious power, the grounding of the thigh, well balanced. This oscillation of possibilities makes the image quite ambiguous and complex, opens it up, makes it able to be read in many different different ways, even within the same viewing.

This is why I stated I could not really say what makes this image 'right'. All of these various aspects are balanced just so, and set up a resonance with the viewer that is both very personal, and yet universal. As I look at the image again, I just laugh at myself for trying to put it into words. Can't be done, and that is what makes the image so good.