[Tax-chick]

Good verbiage, as always. And by “that look,” I meant the all-white style. It can be done well, at least as “art photography,” if not in real life.

Can’t blame the designers for Mary-Kate Olsen though. She’s done it to herself. Usually she looks like she selected clothes from the Salvation Army racks with her eyes closed.

[ArrogantBustard]

IMHO, the black and white and shades of grey thing should NEVER (and I mean NEVER) be photographed in anything other than true black and white. Film, preferably, although some true grey-scale digital cameras (no colour filters on the focal plane) have enough dynamic range to make it work. Also, great care must be taken by the photographer to avoid the zombie look ... we don't want to give the appearance of producing cheesecake for necrophiliacs.

One of the best examples of the technique I have ever seen was a portrait of Sigourney Weaver, done by Robert Mapplethorpe. (Yes, the bullwhip guy.) Let's see if I can find it.

Nope. can't ... bummer. It was (is?) astonishingly beautiful.

In any case, when we literally remove all colour from the image, we need the model to put all sorts of figurative colour into the image with body-language and facial expression. In this image, not only is it literally colourless it's figuratively colourless as well.