Sarah Moon. A Bouche Perdue, 2000, Fresson Print
Photo Credit: Fetterman Gallery

This photo by Sarah Moon features a close-up of a female model holding a small parrot. The focus on the bird and the person’s lips, along with the blurred background, creates a strong contrast and draws attention to the striking complementary colour palette – the vivid red of the lips and red polished fingernails in stark contrast against the bird’s yellow-green eye, and the deep greens and blues of the parrot’s feathers, all against the muted tones of the model’s skin.

The photo is grainy, soft, and blurry and was most likely photographed using a long exposure, using analog equipment and techniques, typical of Sarah Moon’s distinctive style with a painterly, ethereal aesthetic. Her style has always been about capturing and creating fiction. Quoted by Artnet, she says: “For me, photography is pure fiction, I don’t believe that I am making any defined statement. Instead, I am expressing something, an echo of the world maybe.”

As Danie noted, Sarah Moon’s feminine imagery is in stark contrast to our recent feature of Helmut Newton’s very powerful, almost masculine images of female subjects. Sarah Moon, the fashion model, turned photographer in 1970 and has since created mesmerizingly beautiful work with a painterly quality. To create her images, she uses analog cameras, from medium format to Polaroids combined with long exposures, shooting for the most notable fashion brands and publications while also exhibiting in some of the world’s most prestigious art galleries.

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