Las cenizas del día

Hace unos días, el Guardian se choteaba un poco de los aires de grandeza de Vanity Fair, de su editor Graydon Carter y de su fotógrafo insignia, a cuenta de la exposición de retratos de la National Gallery londinense, que mezcla fotos de los Cruise con las de James Joyce, Josephine Baker, Susan Sontag.

Con ánimo de jugar un poco, Charlotte Raven imagina qué habría surgido de un encuentro entre Annie Leibovitz y DH Lawrence:

What would Leibovitz have done with DH Lawrence? My favourite picture from the early era shows an anxious and decidedly unsexy DH, in need of a shave and a background to display him to better advantage. The chief photographer of the magazine since its relaunch in the early 80s is famous for her set-ups - photographic contrivances that play with elements of the subject's public persona. In the early days, these tended to be rather literal-minded - the Blues Brothers with blue faces; Bette "The Rose" Midler on a bed of roses.

I pictured her telling DH of the two options she had envisaged. The cover image would feature him naked from the waist up. If he was OK with it, she was planning to duct-tape his mouth, to represent censorship. His triumph against the forces of repression would be indicated by a raised eyebrow, representing self-expression. For the inside spread, he would pose as Mellors the gamekeeper with a brace of live pheasant and Virginia Woolf as his Lady Chatterley.

Sigue leyendo Prints of darkness en el Guardian.