Portrait Photography

Limited Edition of 10 Framed size 27 x 37 cm All works are Archival Pigment prints, floating in an all black wooden frame behind museums glass.  More sizes on request. Sara Punt's w...

This late 1950s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features Sicilian-born American gangster Charles 'Lucky' Luciano (1897 - 1962) walking with friends...

Belles of Shoreditch, from Richard Heeps Burlesque series. Richard Heeps became well-known for his Burlesque Photography after he spent 2003 ca...

The original Star Wars trilogy, formerly marketed as the Star Wars Trilogy (and colloquially referred to as the 'original trilogy'), is the first set of three films produced in the S...

Ready to ship immediately. Free domestic US shipping. David Bowie and William Burroughs in Los Angeles, February 1974, signed Terry O'Neill, 8x10" print, custom framed with non-glar...

Signed color slide print of Nirvana taken by Kirk Weddle during his session with the band in the pool to promote the 1991 groundbreaking album, Nevermind. This is a photograph, take...

Albert WATSON (*1942, Scotland) Sade (Nude), 1992 Archival pigment print 142 x 107 cm (55 7/8 x 42 1/8 in.) Edition of 10, plus 2 AP Print only Drake purchased a series of Albert's ...

"The Gathering" A group of elephants wait out the hottest part of the day under a lone Acacia tortilis tree in this iconic photograph taken in Kenya. Exceptional Creatures is a li...

Men, Women, and Drag, draws inspiration from his diverse roles as a photographer, poet, and activist. His work often intersects with themes of identity, social justice, and cultural ...

Lord Fauntleroy Chewbacca - Affenpinscher (Puppy, Dog, Portrait, Staged, Iconic, Funny, Whimsical, Heartwarming) 2023 Archival Pigment Print on Hahnem...

When the trembling heart stops beating, what remains is a tiny beautiful corpse. I make a portrait to commemorate that life and to express my sorrow and regret. It’s my gesture towar...

"Fabric of Youth" A young Rendille woman named Adato watches over the deserted salt flats of the Chalbi Desert. She is a beacon of hope for the future of her tribe. This image is ...

Museo Archeologico II, Napoli, 2018 C-print Signed, titled, dated and numbered edition of 5 on artist's label on verso. 39.5 x 47.5 inches 47.5 x 59 inches 71 x 88.5 inches The p...

"The Chase" In this award-winning, best-selling image, a wild stallion runs on the beach on Sable Island without a care in the world. The print series Discovering the Horses of Sab...

'John McEnroe' 1981 Silver Gelatin Print by Watfiord / Mirror Group Archives. Wimbledon 3rd Day: John McEnroe. June 1981 The famous tennis star icon won at the All England Club championships that year, finally beating his long term rival Bjorn Borg...

Edition 10 Also available in 40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 inch, Edition 25 Signed on a label and a certificate of authenticity Black and white portrait of Singer and Songwriter David Bowie...

Norman Parkinson 'Audrey Hepburn, Vogue' 1952 Silver gelatin print 36 x 36 inches Estate stamped and numbered on verso “The camera can be the most deadly weapon since the assassi...

Two young models check their make-up backstage at a local fashion show at the Abyssinian Church in Harlem, New York City in 1950. All available sizes and editions: 24" x 20", Editio...

Edition 15, Lenticular In this image Michael Jackson is doing the moonwalk and is x-rayed. A man with x-ray vision, NICK VEASEY creates art that shows what it is really like inside...

Signed limited edition print of Kate Moss by Jake Chessum, taken when she was an unknown 16 year old model, just starting her career. Jake recalls, "I had heard of Kate as she was...

Palm Beach Pastels (1959) Limited Estate Stamped (Photo By Slim Aarons) Socialite Alice Topping relaxing by a swimming pool in Palm Beach, Florida, ...

Dahlia 10, 2013 - Lemon Yellow Raspberry Pink Semi Cactus Dahlia Mural Print by Philip Gatward Dahlia 10 is a rich and luxurious Archival Inkjet Print by contemporary photographer P...

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph of artist Salvador Dali photographed in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona, Spain in May 1966. Jack M...

Lana Turner - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print - Oversized (Photo Cineclassico/Alamy Archives) American actress- Lana Turner (February 8, 1921 – June 29, 1995...

"On Guard" A lone Sable Island horse with a beautifully-unkempt mane stares back at the camera. The print series Discovering the Horses of Sable Island documents one of the last h...

Untitled (Olancha) - 2006, 38x37cm. Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist...

An Unknown Kate Moss At 16 by Jake Chessum 1990 limited edition edition size 20 only this size printed 2024 Archival pigment print numbered and ...

Museum quality fine art print of AURIELEE SUMMERS, THE BATH by photographer Markus Klinko in 2013 in Los Angeles. This print is available in the following sizes, signed and numbered...

Michael Caine contact sheet print by Brian Duffy - London 1964 This session with Michael Caine was shot by Duffy in 1964, the same year that the film Zulu was released which was hi...

Richard Ashcroft DEC 8 1999 LONDON NME COVER SHOOT. Exquisite print of The Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft - close up shot unframed signed and numbered by the artist. limited to 10 only this size. About the artist : Kevin Westenberg is famed - for his creation of provocative and electrifying images of world-class musicians, artists and movie stars for over 25 years. His technique of lighting, colour and composition has helped to produce his own unique visual style. Shortly after receiving an Architecture degree he moved to London where he’s been based since 1983. Westenberg is self-taught and learned his trade working for the UK inkies “New Musical Express” and “Melody Maker” mainly throughout the late 80’s and 90’s documenting amongst others all the UK ‘Britpop’ bands. The breakthrough came in 1993-1994 with the release of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales and Mary J Blige’s Share My World. These two album covers changed the perception of the work worldwide and thus began a run of 20 years of commissions and choice opportunities. For the last 25 years, his musical heritage includes portraits of Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Coldplay, White Stripes, Jane's Addiction, Sting, Bjork, Nirvana, Jeff Buckley, Luther Vandross, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Roses, The Pixies, Paul Weller, Rufus Wainwright, Michael Stipe, U2, Mary J. Blige, R.E.M., Black Sabbath, Massive Attack, BB King, The Rolling Stones, PJ Harvey, Marilyn Manson, Pete Doherty, Oasis, Soundgarden, Jake Bugg, and Bon Jovi among many others. Also included are 100’s of albums, singles, magazine & book covers from around the world. He’s also been chosen as official photographer for the LIVE 8 Hyde Park event in 2005 and for Led Zeppelin reunion concert at the 02 Arena, London. The work & interest also include a wide range of artists portraits beyond the music world. David Lynch, Paul Auster, The Coen Brothers, Rupert Friend, Sir Tom Stoppard, Orla Kiely...

Lilies - 2022 50x50cm. Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival Print based on an original Polaroid on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper. Signature label and certificate. Not moun...

"Bent Sound" - An ethereal underwater fine art photograph that captures the intersection of music and movement through a portrait of singer Njomza Vitia. This submerged portrait tran...

Elvis Adoration (1956) (Photo By Phillip Harrington) Tennessee, May 29, 1956. Elvis Presley with his 1956 Harley KH, in the garage at 1034 Audubon Drive, Memphis. Vernon Presley is crouching beside the Harley. Additional Information: Unframed Paper Size: 16x20'' Printed Later About the Image: Elvis Aaron Presley, also known simply as Elvis, was an American singer, musician and actor. He is regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century and is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King". NOTE OTHER SIZES OF THIS IMAGE AVAILABLE 10 x 12'' 12 x 16'' 16 x 20'' 20 x 24'' 20 x 30'' 30 x 40'' FRAMING AVAILABLE ON REQUEST About the Artist: Phillip A. Harrington was born in 1920 and grew up in Holland, Michigan. He developed an interest in photography at an early age, joining the high school camera club at 16. At the age of 19, Harrington moved to New York City to study at the Clarence. H. White school of photography, a prestigious institution with graduates such as Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Laura Gilpin, and Ralph Steiner. Harrington studied under Clarence White, Jr., who described Harrington as being among the school’s best students. Elvis, Elvis Presley, Elvis Presley2, LEADING MEN, Phillip Harrington Retro Vintage Black and...

Don't Give up on Us Baby (Till Death do us Part) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature...

Edition 10 Also available in 40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 inch, Edition 25 Black and white portrait of actor Heath Ledger in young age. From personality portra...

Brainpower I, Untitled I, and Untitled II (Triptych) 2018 by Juan Lamarca From the Horse Series Fine Art Cotton Paper Overall size: Image size: 16.5 in H x 36 in W Frame size: 17.7 ...

New England Skiing - 'Skiing Starters' (1955) - Limited Edition Estate Stamped - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print (Photo By Slim Aarons/Getty Images Archive) A young skier prefers to ca...

Hanna Seidel (1925 to 2005) lived and worked in Argentina for many years. She was a world traveller, journeying to South America in the 1950s and to Central America, Japan, India, an...

Photo B / W of Josephine Baker in Italy in 1960s.

In Bloom - 2022 50x50cm. Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival Print based on an original Polaroid on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper. Signature label and certificate. Not mo...

Signed limited edition fine art print of The Cure on the road in Holland and Belgium during their 1980 'Seventeen Seconds' tour. Signed and numbered by Jill Furmanovsky in pencil an...

This black-and-white photo captures jazz legend Louis Armstrong playing his trumpet during a performance in Berlin in 1965. Armstrong, with intense focus, holds the trumpet close to his lips, his cheeks slightly puffed as he blows into the instrument. The lighting creates a dramatic effect, highlighting the shine of the trumpet and his facial expression, which conveys his passion and dedication to the music...

Cindy Sherman The Nine Lives of Cindy, 2019 Printed Bone Porcelain 12 1/2 in diameter Limited Edition of 100 Plate signed verso and also accompanied by plate signed documentation card/official Certificate of Authenticity In original box Produced exclusively for the National Portrait Gallery in the United Kingdom on the occasion of the 2019 Cindy Sherman exhibition which also traveled to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Acquired directly from the National Portrait Gallery before it sold out. Cindy Sherman Biography: Born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman lives and works in New York NY. Her ground-breaking photographs have interrogated themes around representation and identity in contemporary media for over four decades. Coming to prominence in the late 1970s with the Pictures Generation group alongside artists such as Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and Louise Lawler, Sherman studied art at Buffalo State College in 1972 where she turned her attention to photography. In 1977, shortly after moving to New York, Sherman began her critically acclaimed Untitled Film Stills. A suite of 69 black and white portraits, Untitled Film Stills sees Sherman impersonate a myriad of stereotypical female characters and caricatures inspired by Hollywood pictures, film noir, and B movies. Using a range of costumes, props and backdrops to manipulate her own appearance and to create photographs resembling promotional film images, the series explores the tension between artifice and identity in consumer culture which has preoccupied the artist’s practice ever since. Sherman continued to channel and reconstruct familiar personas known to the collective psyche, often in unsettling ways. In 1981, the artist created her Centerfolds, a series of photographic double spreads inspired by men’s erotic magazines...

Iconic photo of DeeDee Ramone at the Chelsea Hotel in NYC Dee Dee Ramone on the Balcony 1993 by Keith Green Chelsea Hotel Silver Gelatin Print Rock n Roll Photography 50 and 4 pr...

Untitled (Ben) Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 2017-2020 Signed and numbered, verso 40 x 30 inches, sheet 38 x 28 inches, image (Edition of 3) $4,500 28 x 22 inches, sheet 24 x 20 inches,...

Lily Safra, 1991 Chromogenic Lambda Print Estate edition of 150 July 1991: Lily Safra, wife of Lebanese born banker Edmond Safra, at home in La Leopolda, S...

Dolly Parton in Joelton, Tennessee, 1997. 17x22" Archival pigment print on baryta 315 gsm, acid-free, 100% cotton-fiber paper. Edition 75 Signed on recto by photographer Jim Herrin...

Darth Elvis By BATIK Signed Limited Edition BATIK is a London based fine artist and image maker. Produced directly in the artist's studio Certificate of authenticity supplied Pa...

Fabrizio Bentivoglio t by Angelo Frontoni is a lot of two photographic prints on baryta paper. Photographer's ink stamp on back, high quality prints. ...

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Autumn - 2001, 20x29cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid Slide. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. LIFE’S A DREAM (The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider) by Mark Gisbourne Projection is a form of apparition that is characteristic of our human nature, for what we imagine almost invariably transcends the reality of what we live. And, an apparition, as the word suggests, is quite literally ‘an appearing’, for what we appear to imagine is largely shaped by the imagination of its appearance. If this sounds tautological then so be it. But the work of Stefanie Schneider is almost invariably about chance and apparition. And, it is through the means of photography, the most apparitional of image-based media, that her pictorial narratives or photo-novels are generated. Indeed, traditional photography (as distinct from new digital technology) is literally an ‘awaiting’ for an appearance to take place, in line with the imagined image as executed in the camera and later developed in the dark room. The fact that Schneider uses out-of-date Polaroid film stock to take her pictures only intensifies the sense of their apparitional contents when they are realised. The stability comes only at such time when the images are re-shot and developed in the studio, and thereby fixed or arrested temporarily in space and time. The unpredictable and at times unstable film she adopts for her works also creates a sense of chance within the outcome that can be imagined or potentially envisaged by the artist Schneider. But this chance manifestation is a loosely controlled, or, better called existential sense of chance, which becomes pre-disposed by the immediate circumstances of her life and the project she is undertaking at the time. Hence the choices she makes are largely open-ended choices, driven by a personal nature and disposition allowing for a second appearing of things whose eventual outcome remains undefined. And, it is the alliance of the chance-directed material apparition of Polaroid film, in turn explicitly allied to the experiences of her personal life circumstances, that provokes the potential to create Stefanie Schneider’s open-ended narratives. Therefore they are stories based on a degenerate set of conditions that are both material and human, with an inherent pessimism and a feeling for the sense of sublime ridicule being seemingly exposed. This in turn echoes and doubles the meaning of the verb ‘to expose’. To expose being embedded in the technical photographic process, just as much as it is in the narrative contents of Schneider’s photo-novel exposés. The former being the unstable point of departure, and the latter being the uncertain ends or meanings that are generated through the photographs doubled exposure. The large number of speculative theories of apparition, literally read as that which appears, and/or creative visions in filmmaking and photography are self-evident, and need not detain us here. But from the earliest inception of photography artists have been concerned with manipulated and/or chance effects, be they directed towards deceiving the viewer, or the alchemical investigations pursued by someone like Sigmar Polke. None of these are the real concern of the artist-photographer Stefanie Schneider, however, but rather she is more interested with what the chance-directed appearances in her photographs portend. For Schneider’s works are concerned with the opaque and porous contents of human relations and events, the material means are largely the mechanism to achieving and exposing the ‘ridiculous sublime’ that has come increasingly to dominate the contemporary affect(s) of our world. The uncertain conditions of today’s struggles as people attempt to relate to each other - and to themselves - are made manifest throughout her work. And, that she does this against the backdrop of the so-called ‘American Dream’, of a purportedly advanced culture that is Modern America, makes them all the more incisive and critical as acts of photographic exposure. From her earliest works of the late nineties one might be inclined to see her photographs as if they were a concerted attempt at an investigative or analytic serialisation, or, better still, a psychoanalytic dissection of the different and particular genres of American subculture. But this is to miss the point for the series though they have dates and subsequent publications remain in a certain sense unfinished. Schneider’s work has little or nothing to do with reportage as such, but with recording human culture in a state of fragmentation and slippage. And, if a photographer like Diane Arbus dealt specifically with the anomalous and peculiar that made up American suburban life, the work of Schneider touches upon the alienation of the commonplace. That is to say how the banal stereotypes of Western Americana have been emptied out, and claims as to any inherent meaning they formerly possessed has become strangely displaced. Her photographs constantly fathom the familiar, often closely connected to traditional American film genre, and make it completely unfamiliar. Of course Freud would have called this simply the unheimlich or uncanny. But here again Schneider almost never plays the role of the psychologist, or, for that matter, seeks to impart any specific meanings to the photographic contents of her images. The works possess an edited behavioural narrative (she has made choices), but there is never a sense of there being a clearly defined story. Indeed, the uncertainty of my reading here presented, acts as a caveat to the very condition that Schneider’s photographs provoke. Invariably the settings of her pictorial narratives are the South West of the United States, most often the desert and its periphery in Southern California. The desert is a not easily identifiable space, with the suburban boundaries where habitation meets the desert even more so. There are certain sub-themes common to Schneider’s work, not least that of journeying, on the road, a feeling of wandering and itinerancy, or simply aimlessness. Alongside this subsidiary structural characters continually appear, the gas station, the automobile, the motel, the highway, the revolver, logos and signage, the wasteland, the isolated train track and the trailer. If these form a loosely defined structure into which human characters and events are cast, then Schneider always remains the fulcrum and mechanism of their exposure. Sometimes using actresses, friends, her sister, colleagues or lovers, Schneider stands by to watch the chance events as they unfold. And, this is even the case when she is a participant in front of camera of her photo-novels. It is the ability to wait and throw things open to chance and to unpredictable circumstances, that marks the development of her work over the last eight years. It is the means by which random occurrences take on such a telling sense of pregnancy in her work. However, in terms of analogy the closest proximity to Schneider’s photographic work is that of film. For many of her titles derive directly from film, in photographic series like OK Corral (1999), Vegas (1999), Westworld (1999), Memorial Day (2001), Primary Colours (2001), Suburbia (2004), The Last Picture Show (2005), and in other examples. Her works also include particular images that are titled Zabriskie Point, a photograph of her sister in an orange wig. Indeed the tentative title for the present publication Stranger Than Paradise is taken from Jim Jarmusch’s film of the same title in 1984. Yet it would be dangerous to take this comparison too far, since her series 29 Palms (1999) presages the later title of a film that appeared only in 2002. What I am trying to say here is that film forms the nexus of American culture, and it is not so much that Schneider’s photographs make specific references to these films (though in some instances they do), but that in referencing them she accesses the same American culture that is being emptied out and scrutinised by her photo-novels. In short her pictorial narratives might be said to strip films of the stereotypical Hollywood tropes that many of them possess. Indeed, the films that have most inspired her are those that similarly deconstruct the same sentimental and increasingly tawdry ‘American Dream’ peddled by Hollywood. These include films like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990) The Lost Highway (1997), John Dahl’s The Last Seduction (1994) or films like Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise with all its girl-power Bonny and Clyde-type clichés. But they serve no more than as a backdrop, a type of generic tableau from which Schneider might take human and abstracted elements, for as commercial films they are not the product of mere chance and random occurrence. Notwithstanding this observation, it is also clear that the gender deconstructions that the characters in these films so often portray, namely the active role of women possessed of a free and autonomous sexuality (even victim turned vamp), frequently find resonances within the behavioural events taking place in Schneider’s photographs and DVD sequences; the same sense of sexual autonomy that Stefanie Schneider possesses and is personally committed to. In the series 29 Palms (first begun in 1999) the two women characters Radha and Max act out a scenario that is both infantile and adolescent. Wearing brightly coloured fake wigs of yellow and orange, a parody of the blonde and the redhead, they are seemingly trailer park white trash possessing a sentimental and kitsch taste in clothes totally inappropriate to the locality. The fact that Schneider makes no judgment about this is an interesting adjunct. Indeed, the photographic projection of the images is such that the girls incline themselves to believe that they are both beautiful and desirous. However, unlike the predatory role of women in say Richard Prince’s photographs, which are simply a projection of a male fantasy onto women, Radha and Max are self-contained in their vacuous if empty trailer and motel world of the swimming pool, nail polish, and childish water pistols. Within the photographic sequence Schneider includes herself, and acts as a punctum of disruption. Why is she standing in front of an Officers’ Wives Club? Why is Schneider not similarly attired? Is there a proximity to an army camp, are these would-be Lolita(s) Rahda and Max wives or American marine groupies, and where is the centre and focus of their identity? It is the ambiguity of personal involvement that is set up by Schneider which deliberately makes problematic any clear sense of narrative construction. The strangely virulent colours of the bleached-out girls stand in marked contrast to Schneider’s own anodyne sense of self-image. Is she identifying with the contents or directing the scenario? With this series, perhaps, more than any other, Schneider creates a feeling of a world that has some degree of symbolic order. For example the girls stand or squat by a dirt road, posing the question as to their sexual and personal status. Following the 29 Palms series, Schneider will trust herself increasingly by diminishing the sense of a staged environment. The events to come will tell you both everything and nothing, reveal and obfuscate, point towards and simultaneously away from any clearly definable meaning. If for example we compare 29 Palms to say Hitchhiker (2005), and where the sexual contents are made overtly explicit, we do not find the same sense of simulated identity. It is the itinerant coming together of two characters Daisy and Austen, who meet on the road and subsequently share a trailer together. Presented in a sequential DVD and still format, we become party to a would-be relationship of sorts. No information is given as to the background or social origins, or even any reasons as to why these two women should be attracted to each other. Is it acted out? Are they real life experiences? They are women who are sexually free in expressing themselves. But while the initial engagement with the subject is orchestrated by Schneider, and the edited outcome determined by the artist, beyond that we have little information with which to construct a story. The events are commonplace, edgy and uncertain, but the viewer is left to decide as to what they might mean as a narrative. The disaggregated emotions of the work are made evident, the game or role playing, the transitory fantasies palpable, and yet at the same time everything is insubstantial and might fall apart at any moment. The characters relate but they do not present a relationship in any meaningful sense. Or, if they do, it is one driven the coincidental juxtaposition of random emotions. Should there be an intended syntax it is one that has been stripped of the power to grammatically structure what is being experienced. And, this seems to be the central point of the work, the emptying out not only of a particular American way of life, but the suggestion that the grounds upon which it was once predicated are no longer possible. The photo-novel Hitchhiker is porous and the culture of the seventies which it might be said to homage is no longer sustainable. Not without coincidence, perhaps, the decade that was the last ubiquitous age of Polaroid film. In the numerous photographic series, some twenty or so, that occur between 29 Palms and Hitchhiker, Schneider has immersed herself and scrutinised many aspects of suburban, peripheral, and scrubland America. Her characters, including herself, are never at the centre of cultural affairs. Such eccentricities as they might possess are all derived from what could be called their adjacent status to the dominant culture of America. In fact her works are often sated with references to the sentimental sub-strata that underpin so much of American daily life. It is the same whether it is flower gardens and household accoutrements of her photo-series Suburbia (2004), or the transitional and environmental conditions depicted in The Last Picture Show (2005). The artist’s use of sentimental song titles, often adapted to accompany individual images within a series by Schneider, show her awareness of America’s close relationship between popular film and music. For example the song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, becomes Leaving in a Jet Plane as part of The Last Picture Show series, while the literalism of the plane in the sky is shown in one element of this diptych, but juxtaposed to a blonde-wigged figure first seen in 29 Palms. This indicates that every potential narrative element is open to continual reallocation in what amounts to a story without end. And, the interchangeable nature of the images, like a dream, is the state of both a pictorial and affective flux that is the underlying theme pervading Schneider’s photo-narratives. For dream is a site of yearning or longing, either to be with or without, a human pursuit of a restless but uncertain alternative to our daily reality. The scenarios that Schneider sets up nonetheless have to be initiated by the artist. And, this might be best understood by looking at her three recent DVD sequenced photo-novels, Reneé’s Dream and Sidewinder (2005). We have already considered the other called Hitchhiker. In the case of Sidewinder the scenario was created by internet where she met J.D. Rudometkin, an ex-theologian, who agreed to her idea to live with her for five weeks in the scrubland dessert environment of Southern California. The dynamics and unfolding of their relationship, both sexually and emotionally, became the primary subject matter of this series of photographs. The relative isolation and their close proximity, the interactive tensions, conflicts and submissions, are thus recorded to reveal the day-to-day evolution of their relationship. That a time limit was set on this relation-based experiment was not the least important aspect of the project. The text and music accompanying the DVD were written by the American Rudometkin, who speaks poetically of “Torn Stevie. Scars from the weapon to her toes an accidental act of God her father said. On Vaness at California.” The mix of hip reverie and fantasy-based language of his text, echoes the chaotic unfolding of their daily life in this period, and is evident in the almost sun-bleached Polaroid images like Whisky Dance, where the two abandon themselves to the frenetic circumstances of the moment. Thus Sidewinder, a euphemism for both a missile and a rattlesnake, hints at the libidinal and emotional dangers that were risked by Schneider and Rudometkin. Perhaps, more than any other of her photo-novels it was the most spontaneous and immediate, since Schneider’s direct participation mitigated against and narrowed down the space between her life and the art work. The explicit and open character of their relationship at this time (though they have remained friends), opens up the question as the biographical role Schneider plays in all her work. She both makes and directs the work while simultaneously dwelling within the artistic processes as they unfold. Hence she is both author and character, conceiving the frame within which things will take place, and yet subject to the same unpredictable outcomes that emerge in the process. In Reneé’s Dream, issues of role reversal take place as the cowgirl on her horse undermines the male stereotype of Richard Prince’s ‘Marlboro Country’. This photo-work along with several others by Schneider, continue to undermine the focus of the male gaze, for her women are increasingly autonomous and subversive. They challenge the male role of sexual predator, often taking the lead and undermining masculine role play, trading on male fears that their desires can be so easily attained. That she does this by working through archetypal male conventions of American culture, is not the least of the accomplishments in her work. What we are confronted with frequently is of an idyll turned sour, the filmic clichés that Hollywood and American television dramas have promoted for fifty years. The citing of this in the Romantic West, where so many of the male clichés were generated, only adds to the diminishing sense of substance once attributed to these iconic American fabrications. And, that she is able to do this through photographic images rather than film, undercuts the dominance espoused by time-based film. Film feigns to be seamless though we know it is not. Film operates with a story board and setting in which scenes are elaborately arranged and pre-planned. Schneider has thus been able to generate a genre of fragmentary events, the assemblage of a story without a storyboard. But these post-narratological stories require another component, and that component is the viewer who must bring their own interpretation as to what is taking place. If this can be considered the upside of her work, the downside is that she never positions herself by giving a personal opinion as to the events that are taking place in her photographs. But, perhaps, this is nothing more than her use of the operation of chance dictates. I began this essay by speaking about the apparitional contents of Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives, and meant at that time the literal and chance-directed ‘appearing’ qualities of her photographs. Perhaps, at this moment we should also think of the metaphoric contents of the word apparition. There is certainly a spectre-like quality also, a ghostly uncertainty about many of the human experiences found in her subject matter. Is it that the subculture of the American Dream, or the way of life Schneider has chosen to record, has in turn become also the phantom of it former self? Are these empty and fragmented scenarios a mirror of what has become of contemporary America? There is certainly some affection for their contents on the part of the artist, but it is somehow tainted with pessimism and the impossibility of sustainable human relations, with the dissolute and commercial distractions of America today. Whether this is the way it is, or, at least, the way it is perceived by Schneider is hard to assess. There is a bleak lassitude about so many of her characters. But then again the artist has so inured herself into this context over a long protracted period that the boundaries between the events and happenings photographed, and the personal life of Stefanie Schneider, have become similarly opaque. Is it the diagnosis of a condition, or just a recording of a phenomenon? Only the viewer can decide this question. For the status of Schneider’s certain sense of uncertainty is, perhaps, the only truth we may ever know.

1 Kerry Brougher (ed.), Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors, ex. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 1996) 2 Im Reich der Phantome: Fotographie des Unsichtbaren, ex. cat., Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach/Kunsthalle Krems/FotomuseumWinterthur, (Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997) 3 Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish – Sigmar Polke, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zürich-Berlin-New York, 1995) 4 Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Occasional Papers, no. 1, 2000. 5 Diane Arbus, eds. Doon Arbus, and Marvin Israel...

"Rainbow Trailed" The J-Class boats Rainbow and Velsheda sail at near impossible angles as the sailors freely dangle their feet over the edge of the deck. This award-winning image is in the permanent collection of the Mariners' Museum, Newport News...

"Kate Moss London" by Jake Chessum Portrait of a young 16 year old Kate Moss – before she shot to supermodel stardom and became the icon she is today. Jake grew up in Croydon, South London. He studied Graphic Design at St. Martins School Of Art, and started working as photographer straight out of college. Assignments for The Face, Arena, and an early ad campaign for “Neutrogena” featuring a 16 year old Kate Moss followed. By 1995 Jake was regularly flying the Atlantic on assignment for JFK Jrs' “George” Magazine and in 1999 he upped sticks and moved permanently to NYC where he still lives with his wife and 2 kids...

Cricket in Antigua (1960) - Limited Estate Stamped (Photo By Slim Aarons) Cricketers on the field during a match between the Leeward Islands and the MCC, Antigua, West Indies, ...

"CAMOUFLAGED BEAUTY COLLECTION Van Zeijl's love for nature and metamorphosis is also identifiable in the rebellious way she reshapes the dresses of well-known fashion designer Claes ...

Frozen (Stranger than Paradise) - 2001 Edition of 5 16 pieces, 48 x 47 cm each, 2.20 x 2.20 cm installed. Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on 16 Polaroids. Signat...

Iman at King Peter’s Bay, Tobago wearing a Jane Cattlin bikini. British Vogue, May 1976 Iman at King Peter's Bay, Tobago. Vogue, May 1976 Silver gelatin p...

Bette (1931) Silver Gelatin Fibre Print (photo by Glasshouse Archive / Alamy Archives) Actress Bette Davis, Portrait by Jack Freilich, 1931. Additional Information: Unframed Paper Size: 10x12...

Slim Aarons Skiing In St. Moritz 1983 C print Estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity from the estate. Countess Jan Bonde in the Palace H...

Artist: Bert Stern, American (1929 - 2013) Title: Marilyn Monroe: The Last Sitting Year: 1962 Medium: Chromogenic C-Print Photograph, signed and numbered in marker Edition: 209/250 ...

Staging Pictures: Early Polaroids focuses on Stivers' working Polaroid prints, shot with a Hasselblad Polaroid back for instant proofing of lighting and composition of his subjects. ...