
#CreateArtNotPorn
Art_Nudes
By

![]()
By Scott Sullivan SCS Photography
and

Unbearable-Lightness
[link]
2012 May 18th


Woman by `Unbearable-Lightness
WOMAN
"Woman, please let me explain,
I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain..."
~ John Lennon
On December 8, 1980, Annie Leibovitz photographed John Lennon for the cover of Rolling Stone. He insisted on bringing his wife Yoko Ono with him. Leibovitz had no preconception at all about what she wanted from the married couple except she wanted them both nude. As the story goes, Yoko said no to nudity, and Leibovitz later said a nude John "looked cold." He curled up against his wife.
Viewing a Polaroid of the shot, John and Yoko exclaimed to Annie, “You’ve captured our relationship exactly.” Five hours after the shoot, John Lennon was shot.
An image from that shoot became THE iconic photograph. In 2005, it was voted by the American Society of Magazine Editors as the best magazine cover of the last 40 years.
Everything about that image has always fascinated me. Five hours before his senseless and tragic death, Lennon appears prophetically vulnerable yet protective of his wife. To be honest, I never understood his attraction to Yoko Ono with her stone faced countenance. She always seemed to convey detachment.
Scott and I talked about shooting a version of the iconic cover shot for over a year. Initially, we planned to shoot it with an African American model, but he failed to show up for the shoot. Then we arranged for Elijah to create the image with us, but he wasn't able to get a flight this week on short notice. Scott had just worked with beautiful Erin, and I told him, "You know what. Bring Erin and she can do whatever a guy can do - and better."
Our day-long shoot began with getting the anchor shot. I asked Scott to share his thoughts about it, and last night he wrote:
"When Carla brought up the idea I loved it. Part of this term [in his fine art program] was learning about visual signifiers and iconography, and working on such a strong visual image as the one created by Annie Leibovitz was a real challenge.
The fun part was to make the image something unique and create our own feel to it. We then had a lot of dialog about how Annie created it. In the end, as the photographer, I just let Carla and Erin express themselves, like John and Yoko did in the original.
It was a beautiful way to start our shoot, and created a beautiful bond among us."
Erin and I decided to wear brunette wigs as we are both blondes and wanted the dramatic framing of dark hair. I've never really understood Yoko Ono, but after I also lost the love of my life to death, I developed a sympathy for her. When we decided I would portray her in our recasting and I dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans, I immediately felt I was back in the the time of the iconic 1980 shoot.
I met the love of my life that same year. As Yoko lost hers, mine came into my life.
It was much more difficult than we ever anticipated to figure out our body placements. We tried everything, including propping my head with a rolled-up towel. Scott stood on a tall ladder to get an overhead shot, and Erin and I took turns in poses that crushed my arm or her leg. Beyond the physical challenge was the emotional one.
At some point, Erin suddenly said, "I really get John Lennon!" When a model gets into someone else's skin, literally, you begin to feel what the person was feeling.
We referenced a less-iconic shot where John and Yoko both stared at the camera. Erin's facial expression of John's vulnerability and protectiveness completes what the pose is saying. I found it impossible to look as dead pan as Yoko always was. Since it's my own expression, you will have to tell me what, if anything, I conveyed with that look at the camera.
The three of us decided the image should not be cropped like Leibovitz's. The entirety of our physical selves seemed necessary to say what we wanted to say. We better see Yoko's submission to fate in the cast-aside arm and hand in contrast to her set, grounded position that communicates her strength as the survivor of a great tragedy. It was John's protective strength that saw her through an incomprehensible loss. I believe we all learned a lot about love from recasting this work.
For me, the iconic image will always be about John and Yoko's great love for each other, what it means when the love of your life turns out to be someone of another race, and the tragedy of losing that once-in-a-lifetime person.
From my own experience, I know an interracial marriage isolates you as a couple and makes you stronger together. When the spouse dies, the one so fiercely protected suddenly becomes the vulnerable one. As much as your love for that person remains a great joy, the sorrow and pain of the loss also remains. Thus, I chose the the prefatory quote from John Lennon's "Woman" to explain what our version, shot a couple days ago, means to me.
More at
[link]
--
I try to learn the technique, the criticism is constructive, please give me yours !