After You'd Gone

After You'd Gone

Philadelphia 1980, from the series 'Pictus Interruptus' [detail]

In the series 'Pictus Interruptus'[1976-80], photographer Ray K. Metzker plays with the parameters of photographic vision by holding fragments of portraits (possibly from the pages of magazines) close to the lens of his camera, while focusing on a landscape in the background. Because the lens is set at infinity, the foreground image is thrown out of focus just enough to take on an anonymous, ghostlike appearance, almost as if it were torn from someone's memory. Considering the title of Maggie O'Farrell's novel, this photograph proves a reasonable choice as jacket art.
For this book cover, Metzker's original black & white image has been flipped horizontally, cropped and tinted blue. KB