AOP Gallery – Polaroid Retrospective
20 October-14 November 2008

Photographer – Bernd Opitz
Title - Woman With Birdcage

I like this image; it seems both personal and mysterious, and the title suggests more questions rather than giving you an explanation. The subject is a portrait, mostly in silhouette, of what seems to be a young woman standing barefoot, holding an empty birdcage above her head. Her hair is in a bun and she is wearing a black sleeveless polo neck top with a light coloured pleated skirt.

The photograph is an inkjet print of a Pola 55 scanned from the negative. The actual Polaroid/film edge surrounding the image suggests a ‘frame within a frame’ effect. The focussing is very soft and the warm sepia-like tone of the print suggests, though it is not, an image taken long ago, a feeling which is enhanced further by the obvious grain and blotches, as if the negative has been damaged.

The image has been shot at an angle which makes it even more intriguing. The landscape in the background tilts up on the left side. When you look closely at the original image you can see that the subject is looking away from the camera, to something just out of line? We are not sure what has actually happened, or is about to happen.

http://www.berndopitz.com/