Style as Substance

I found this photo (of sorts) while surfing the internet today.  It is Paolo Roversi, the great fashion photographer.  That is what he is, too, nothing more nor less.  I mean both great and a fashion photographer.  He is fortunate in that he gets paid a lot of money to make pictures.  It must be something of a curse, too, but I am in no position to opine on that.  Like Sarah Moon, he makes photos of women in dresses for the most part.  A billion photographers do that.  But his photographs arrest your attention in ways that only he and Moon's do.  They are Modernists, I believe, in their attention to style.  They, like the best modern writers, have wedded style and content.  The images perform the underlying theory.

I like style more than most.  In writing, I prefer phrases to paragraphs.  Paragraphs are merely support.  On the surface of things, Moon and Roversi have silly subjects.  Women and dresses.  But that is not it.  If you can't see beyond that, I can't help you.  It is silly.  It is frivolous.  It is profound.

I haven't shaken the funk.  I've not made a picture in over a month.  I struggle.  Graceless.

(photo by Paolo Roversi)