On Obituaries / One Image, Two Perspectives
(with Alexandra Wanderer) ‍

What will cross a young photographer’s mind as she converses with the man on the picture?

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Here, a singing comedian. Later, in exile, she will photograph cadavers in slaughterhouses – their gaunt skins and emaciated symmetries – then place the prints alongside famous people’s portraits she became known for.

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Here’s to a singing comedian, his face almost a mask. See the dark makeup under his eyes – rouged, we may think –, the oblique hairline, the solid wrinkles around his mouth. A mime.

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The last portrait of a man whose leg was cut off before he died.

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He has a good head of hair for his age, I mean, he is what? in his late 60s in that picture? That’s a thick head of hair.

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The tie is a Croatian invention. Not exactly how we see it today.  Anyways, French royalty saw the Croatian soldiers wearing it and then took it over. Croats set the trend, but the French still credited them in the name “cravate”. I’m sure you can find a podcast about this.

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He looks a little grumpy, constipated. But then I was thinking maybe he’s tired, as in it’s his fifth photoshoot of the day, even though it’s probably the fiftieth in his whole lifetime.

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Gosh, I just read that he died, this is his obituary, well, now I feel terrible.

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There is a good amount of triangles in the image, beginning with the hairline of Girardi, that makes a nearly perfect 90-degree angle, down to the tie, and another hiding behind the vest, and then, of course, the arms forming triangles, because the hands have been placed in the pockets.

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