Vionnet Dress with Fan (1925-1926), New York 1974

Irving Penn made this gelatin silver print, "Vionnet Dress with Fan," sometime in New York between 1925 and 1926. It's all about capturing light as a process, a conversation between dark and light, surface and depth. The photograph has this incredible texture, doesn't it? The dress, a cascade of silver tones, looks almost liquid. Penn lets the fabric speak, each fold and drape a study in contrast. And then there's that peacock fan, a burst of feathery darkness that both conceals and reveals. Look how the light glances off the model’s back, turning her into a sculpture. That knot on the dress, cinching the fabric, is like a focal point, gathering all the visual energy. Penn, like his contemporary, Steichen, knew how to make fashion photography into high art. But where Steichen was all glamour, Penn was more interested in form, using ambiguity to get at something deeper.