Dress Rehearsal for an Undressed Photograph

Woman saying goodbye to her mandolin? A touching moment, it reminded me of a De Chirico; reminded me of La Jetee; reminded me of another photo - one of the first (and worst) black and white photos I ever took (for a project called, ‘People at Work’) – an Old man touching-up his Princess (an Austin Princess).

Both images were heavily criticised because they were faceless. It was at this point I adopted, what the critic A.D. Colman has termed, ‘the directorial mode’. But I wouldn’t invent a photograph (what an absurd idea); I’d take a photograph to record something I (we) already did – as a kind of ‘ladder to an idea’. 

Here’s the dress rehearsal for ‘Sex Mechanic’, a photograph - inspired by the embrace of a mandolin and the touching-up of a Princess - that required the actors to appear in a state of undress.