ENTRY DESCRIPTION
This photo is a collaborative effort between myself and my work colleague; I asked her to take the original full color photo with my phone, then I cropped the photo and converted it to black and white. By changing and concentrating it to the current dimensions, the subject of the portrait was made anonymous and almost universal - open to being almost anyone, any woman (of any color, ethnicity, age, nationality) who ever had authority over or simply just owned her decisions regarding a career, work project or heartfelt endeavor. The portrait's honesty and blunt, mature body language is balanced by the intangible mystery presented...who is the subject? How old is she? What year / what era could the photograph have been taken? the 1930s, 1940s, 2015? Aesthetically speaking, the timelessness and elegant details remind me of Lewis Wickes Hine's black-and-white photograph of an American soldier silhouetted against the Eiffel Tower in the foggy background. I like that the submitted portrait technically shows little, and has such a simple composition, and yet could be interpreted to reflect volumes of words and meanings - all appropriate to the given title.

back to gallery