BEDS
The most moving photograph on earth, for me, is Imogene Cunningham's "Unmade Bed". I am now fortunate to own a print of that evocative, iconic image. Inspired by her photograph and its various meanings, I have been making images of the beds I sleep in as I travel to photograph, which I generally do alone. They reference much needed rest, and act as a visual record of the dreams I leave on the still warm pillow, in the tangled bedclothes, in the rooms I inhabit as a photographer on the prowl for the next image, and the next. They are always done on the first morning I wake up in a place, with the bed left exactly as I leave it, exactly as I slept in it.
At first, I was struck by the sameness of all the beds, as I traveled, but later recognized their differences, and their sense of place told by the headboards and area surrounding the actual beds. At the beginning, I made tight shots of the variety of beds, rooms, the bedspreads or duvets, often with my cameras on them. Then several trips ago to India, I shot one unmade, because I was about to leave that hotel to go out to shoot, and then directly to catch a plane, and I remembered I hadn't done it yet. When I got the film back, I was struck by the feelings I experienced looking at the beauty and simplicity of the wrinkled white, the indented pillows, and the whole sort of disheveled quality of the place where I had dreamt through the night.
This, of all my projects, has gained new depth and dimension in each of places I wake up; in Paris, Vienna, Copenhagen, Ghent, Agra, Hamburg, Helsinki, and dozens of other towns and cities. The number of beds will continue to grow, and the titles reflect the locations. I have shown them printed large, a testament to process and dreams, inspiration and personal journey. Here is a sampling from the series.
