Like these photos of strippers culled from magazine spreads and publicity shots used to tout some gentertainment.
They have their own life which becomes the shadow by which we know or identify the subject’s life. This shadow becomes more and more independent until it is the dominant figure and its original creator, the man himself, becomes utterly subservient. Simply put, it’s the story of a man whose shadow escapes one night and starts living a life of its own. Most of these pictures drift unanchored to any connecting narrative.Īll of which reminds me of the old Hans Christian Andersen story “ The Shadow,” which I’m sure you all know or have at least been told at some point in your childhood. Just think, every day there are more images merely uploaded than all of the pictures produced during the 19th century. Many are strangely orphaned like most of the kazillions of images out there. The Internet has a fair selection of vintage images of strippers and burlesque dancers from the nineteen-forties, the fifties, sixties, seventies, and so on.
