the Door in the Floor

the Door in the Floor

There is something about adults in a fetal position that interests me when posing models. The contrast of mannered adulthood to what is associated with prenatal is fairly apparent and obvious, but powerful nonetheless. I think the first time I remember seeing this motif was the infamous Rolling Stone magazine cover by Annie Liebovitz of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, with John in a fetal position posed naked around a clothed Yoko.


I go back to this pose every now and then when I shoot, and this time, I thought it would be a little more interesting and jarring to have the model posed in a suit. A simple variation - most of the time you see a man in a suit in a painting or a photograph, they are standing stylishly or posed in a setting befitting evening wear.


There is significantly more backstory to this piece than is evident in the final version you see here. I wanted to know why this man was laying on the floor like this, why he was dressed as he was, what he was thinking or what happened to him. But rather than recite what my take on it is, I thought ultimately it doesn’t matter - the feeling of despair or sadness is fairly evident, and the reasons for it are not really the point.


This is, in a simple way, a message of hope, this one. Regardless of whatever it is that has laid you low, no matter the darkness you find surrounding you, there is always an escape, always a way out. It may not be clear who or what that is, but there seems to be something to come along that lifts us out of the despair.


Our man here holds a key, and ahead of him, on the floor, is a keyhole. Perhaps it will unlock something, perhaps a trap door in the floor. All he needs to do is reach for it and turn the key.


I have had many instances where things seem lost and hopeless, and, in hindsight, there was always someone or something that served as a help, a way out. You would think with multiple instances of this in one’s lifetime, one should know and trust that there will always be an escape and a release, but depression and sadness can often feel like the end of all things, that all things are hopeless and there is no way out.


For my floor I chose another motif I have visited a few times, the chess board, which could easily be just a tiled floor, but here it serves as symbolic of life is a game of strategy and luck, of skill and focus, and we are all playing our part in it.


This piece follows a rather complicated and expansive one, and I find that after one so time consuming, what follows are quieter and simpler pieces, as if the mind is retracting from the exertion. I often enjoy this period between larger ones, where things are a bit more austere and open-ended, a breather, a cool-down between sprints.


Model: Ben