

A luxury hosiery campaign photograph in a white sample room. She is kneeling up on a low wooden bench with her knees apart and her back arched hard, her weight forward on one flat hand, and she has turned at the waist to look back over her own shoulder straight into the lens. The camera is low and behind her and a little to one side, at the height of the bench, close, so the long line of her back and the curve of her hips fill the frame and her face is up at the top of it, turned back to us. Her eyes are level and open, her lips slightly parted, her chin down. Her black bob is swung to one side so her face and jaw are clear. She wears sheer black tights and a plain black bra: one continuous piece of knit from her toes to a plain flat waistband, the same weave the whole way, no band or seam anywhere on the legs. In this position the knit is stretched to its thinnest over her seat and the backs of her thighs, so her pale skin comes through it and the fine weave opens into a visible grid there, while at her ankles the same knit lies slack and dead matte black. Her free hand is up at the waistband, one finger hooked under it, drawing it a centimetre away from the small of her back. A fine gold chain anklet sits on one ankle at the bottom edge of the frame. One hard light from the side rakes right along the arch of her back and the curve of her hip so the whole line is drawn in light and the shadow side falls away; the white paper ground burns out clean behind her. Three tones: white ground, pale skin, black knit. Camera at bench height, low, close, behind and to the side. one hard raking source, extreme high contrast, shallow depth of field, sharp focus on the stretched weave and on her eyes. Fine 35mm film grain. In the lower right corner, a small pencil signature: Ziggy