Vanessa DeZutter by Jen

My immediate reaction is that it is duplicating a widely recognized iconic image, I knew exactly what image Vanessa was working with. With it being a younger couple, I feel more youth in the image despite how well it was replicated. I notice I have a different emotional response seeing a couple that isn’t famous and that I don’t have a back story for.

The photograph is of Man and a woman laying on the floor. The woman is laying back flat on the floor looking off to the side, the man is cradled on her side, in a fetal position wrapped around her side arm cradling her head. His eyes are closed kissing her cheek very lovingly.

This is a successful modern take on the image. It is very successful because it copies the iconic image, but Vanessa added modern references, ie. Hair style, clothing. Knowing it’s a self portrait, very well done although I would like to see it zoomed out more like the original image, more space around the figures.

Vanessa paid attention to details in the clothing. In her modern take she referenced the purple tones of Yoko Ono’s pants in her shirt, the black sweater, and the ear ring. The lighting is slightly different in that it’s even in the original, and sweeping natural light from the left in Vanessa’s image but she paid attention to the saturation of the image and it’s still a soft light. The shot was accomplished with a tripod and timer as this was a self portrait or her and her partner in the privacy of their home. Derek was hesitant to participate but relaxed and settled in to the project as they went along.

As it is such a recognizable image that is iconic on it’s own and even more so with the people in it, the story of the image with a modern couple interacts with viewers more personally than the original. With Vanessa and Derek in the image, being a regular, non famous couple, the viewer can associate the passionate love story of John Lennon and Yoko Ono to a real world couple and imagine themselves in the image. Vanessa chose the image because it was an image in a coffee table book in her home as a child, and at the time she didn’t understand who John and Yoko were, why they were naked, and the importance of the image. Now that she is grown up and knows the context of the image it has deeper personal meaning both nostalgically from her childhood, and in association with her current relationship.