I’ve been finding myself going back to DomesticWitch’s site over the last few days to look at this photo…

…and I finally just stole it from her site:). Ends up it’s an artist is named Jordan Matter, and this photo is from a book called Uncoverered, which appears to have been released about June of 2009.

I’m not sure why I can’t stop looking at it. There’s a ‘drawing down the moon’ quality about it, with the light shining down on her body, and I love the juxtaposition of her naked torso against the scarf and snow. There’s an ecstatic quality in her pose, and a sense of freedom that just draws me in.

I’m almost disappointed that I found Uncovered. Not that I don’t like the book, there are photos in it that are brilliant (be sure to take a look using the above link). The collection is remarkable, at times thought-provoking, poignant, jarring and humorous. Had I found the book as a whole, I’d still have loved it (which I do), but perhaps this photo would have been less unexpected. I think I saw this shot as singular, instead of one of a theme.

So this touches me in a way that few photos do. My favorite piece of all time was shot by Jeffrey Silverstone, and entitled “The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep” (1972). I found it in a collection called Photographs of the Human Form, by William A, Ewing.  The woman in Jordan Matter’s photo above is vibrantly alive, but she shares  the ecstatic quality and a sense of freedom I see in “The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep”;  although Jeffrey Silverstone’s subject has been rent with the deep Y-shaped incision of post-mortem exploration, she is smiling peacefully, her arm is curled up by her face as if she’s stretching and about to wake. Sounds terribly macabre, I know, but it is deeply touching – and comforting. I wish there was a link I could share with you, but it doesn’t seem to be online. As well as Uncovered, I’d recommend Photographs of the Human Form highly, it’s filled with noteworthy works by a plethora of artists.