PHOTOGRAPHY, PHOTOGRAPHED N°7

Photography, photographed N°7. This time we present a brief essay, with snapshots taken from hotel magazines. The eye of Lily Rose Depp – Chanel’s latest testimonial – breaks in the page, lacerating the skin of its former muse, Gisele Bundchen. Success has always a successors. Broken eyes and broken hearts. What is left? A glass bottle, shattered crystals, crumpled paper. The parfum soaked by an expensive carpet. The intersection of pictures expands into interwoven stories where a penetration of surfaces on different plans gives printed ink (what’s the ad, after all?) the privilege of an after life. The paper surgery, an eye for an eye, is the unforgiving rule of fashion business, always looking for the freshest flower. We are talking about perfumes, here, and Lily Rose is a double flower herself. We scribbled Maori tattoos on her skin, adding ink over the printed one. Chanel N°5  label is no longer there because you don’t need it. The bottle is iconic enough and everything else is redundant. Lily Rose, covered by graffiti, turns into a psycho with a mission. Somehow you take her more seriously and start to believe in the magic of her scent.

The closing pictures has nothing to do with Chanel and its eyes, broken or borrowed. It is, possibly, a story about a speculating beauty. You can clearly see, here,  she doesn’t think. She posed as if she did. She was instructed by the photographer to take out “that” tormented look. She failed in delivering that intensity because she’s too young to be troubled by death, too beautiful to be deep (or Depp?) and probably paid way too much to give a dime about it. But then, that word: “the city”. That’s what makes this picture interesting. The word belongs to another page, so it’s just the photo making it happen: from jewelry to real estate! The short distance makes if plausible. The city beckons us. Irresistible. Abstract. Sleepless. Lights on! No matter what, she looks bored. As much as the product she tries to advertise.