Eros - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882

The sense of the world is short,—

Long and various the report,—

              To love and be beloved;

Men and gods have not outlearned it;

And, how oft soe’er they’ve turned it,

              ’Tis not to be improved.

This photograph of Jill is buried in a file where her voluptuous body is to be seen with wonder. I took this picture around 1979. I did not know then what I was doing. But it was not the first time Jill posed for me. It was the last. By then I had developed a technique that has served me well until recently. 

Now with time so short and people’s tight schedules, to leisurely place my subject in a pose, and go around with my camera looking for angles that will interest me is something of the past. 

This picture has no duplicate. It is all by itself. My first thought when I now see it is of someone with supreme gracepoise and elegance. When I took it I did not know then that sometime I might be known by my portraits and particularly by how my subjects displayed their hands.

But looking at the picture again and remembering how Jill’s body was, a sort of a slim version of a Rubens painting, I also think it is highly erotic by my memory of what I can see in my mind. The image is subtle and at my age of 76 Eros for me is all about the passion of youth which has dissipated to a mere idea in my mind.

Thankfully Jill then, laid bare for me, in preparation that one day when I would see what I see now. 

Elegance and Eros.