LCF: 'Commando'. When a picture tells a thousand words.

Photographer David Sims. Paris Vogue, March 2010

Here we have this extraordinary example of the species; you see its proud posture, with masculine exhibitionist connotations. Like a plumped up bird; in its most sexually advantageous and provocative state. Poised, feathers emerging, growing in girth, driven by that: the most primal instinctive urge any species possesses: reproduction. The subject’s obsession is to allure a member of the opposite sex into a helpless state of submission, reminiscent of a Dandy, for the most desired coital state. Albeit, this image eludes us to a fearful realisation, ultimatumatly an instant taking of flight post-coital will occur. Wings are back, poised and ready for immediate aerodynamic airlift; leaving the female waiting for a return, or offspring. 

A narrative of David Attenborough‘s epic proportions, could not evoke a clearer intention of her mood, as her stance in this photograph does. Here the photographer and model are joined in a heightened experience, reverting back to the most basic of primitive instincts and proven Darwinian evolution from our feathered ancestors. The photographer and viewer are merely an audience, willing observers to her suggestively charged, but commanding, theatrical display. The photo screams of Corine Roitfield’s iconic ‘Porno-Chic’; turned peacock.

This Neanderthal, monochromatic, bare chested, overt female dominates the portrait with a pose of a heightened sexual nature. Dirty and dishevelled she depicts bed head connotations. Shadows: appearing as illusive feathers, flaunting from her head; where hair and feathers merge wildly. The lack of colour to the picture encourages the extensive exploration of the contours of her body for mere contrasts of light. A bullet belt acts as a chastity belt to her fertility. Her position and clothing add sexual dominance, yet the appearance of her tied hands and naked breast contrive her vulnerability as the weaker feminine sex. But she is perfectly practised to deceive, parading with fetish play and pert lips as a sexual object of weakness to attract and catch a mate.

 Titled ‘Commando’ she is survival diligent, agile, aggressive and highly desired; a prime specimen of the species for model offspring.

Contemporary social understandings of the term ‘Commando’ are juxtaposed here with the covering of her intimacies, replaced by a narcissistic, nude, upper body only, nipples brazen - which is sadly considered a far less perverse and outrageous ‘front’ today -  as nature intended.