The Sitting

This is the image in the Figure Study series that owes the most to painting. The tufted settee, the three-quarter composition, the direct address of the gaze: every element is borrowed from the European portrait tradition, from Manet's Olympia through Lucian Freud's benefit supervisors. But borrowed is not the same as imitated. The difference is in the gaze. This is not a subject being observed. This is a subject observing the observer, and the power in the frame belongs entirely to her.

I lit with a single large softbox positioned at forty-five degrees camera right, feathered so the falloff across the settee is gradual rather than abrupt. The upholstery catches just enough light to read as texture without competing with the figure. The left third of the frame is given entirely to darkness, and that emptiness is compositionally essential.

I include this image because the Figure Study series needs at least one frame that confronts the viewer directly. The other images in the series are turned away, eyes closed, silhouetted, or seen from above. This one looks back. It insists on the personhood of the subject in a way that the more formal compositions cannot.