Stripped

Everything in this image was made. The wet hair, the flat light, the tank, the tiles -- all of it directed, chosen, constructed with the same intention I construct leather jackets and dramatic shadows. The stripped-back look is still a look.

I want to be honest about that, because this portrait is trying to do something specific and it can only do it if I don't pretend otherwise. What I was removing wasn't the construction. The construction is always there. What I was trying to remove was the layer that comes before: the decision about how to be seen. The lighting that flatters. The wardrobe that signals something. The expression calibrated for effect.

This portrait started with: stop making those decisions.

She is looking directly at you and not performing anything. That's what I was after -- not confrontation, not openness, not welcome. Just attention. You are there. I am here. Neither of us is pretending.

Whether I achieved that, or whether the direct look is itself a performance of not-performing, is a question I can't answer from inside the image. I left it in anyway. Looking away would also have been a choice, and a less honest one.

Harsh, overhead, functional. The one environment most people would not choose if they wanted to look good. Which is why it was right.

Not beauty. Presence. The distinction matters to me -- and the distinction is harder to make than it sounds, because presence that gets rendered still has to look like something. You can't step outside the image. But you can choose a light that doesn't help you, and see what's still there.

I'm not sure what I found. Something, maybe. The question stays open.