Edward Steichen Day 1

Gloria Swanson by Edward Steichen

This photograph by Edward Steichen features famous American actress Gloria Swanson as the subject of the photo. The photo is in stark black and white with little, if any, shades of gray. This creates contrast between the paleness of her face and the darkness of her hair and the veil covering the whole picture. Her smoky eyes are large and round, staring straight into the lens of the camera. Her face is long and ovular, her nose straight and her eyes decorated with dark makeup under her thin eyebrows. Her lips are also dark, giving the whole photograph a distinct aura of glamour. Her hair is the darkest shade of black in the whole image, cut in a fashionably short bob and drawn back from her face neatly, leaving her face open and unobscured. The most compelling part of the image is the object in the immediate front of the image, taking up the entire space. It is a veil of a sheer black material covered in an intricate flowery design that accentuates her face. The top of the veil consists of large dark flowers and leaves that cover her hair, thinning down into a sparse area of delicate branches and tiny flowering blossoms that decorate her eyes and nose. After the last miniature flower, there is a blank grayish expanse of fabric that leaves her mouth untouched by the flowery images. Immediately underneath her lips are more flowers and leaves curling around the edges of the picture, reaching up to the very perimeter of her face.