Portrait Of A Diva

The glamour shoot: Portrait Of A Diva

The set follows Naomi along a path that begins in a hallway and ends in a tub full of foam. The first images show her framed inside a pale doorway that works as a natural border: dark wooden flooring fills the foreground, the walls are broken up by panelling and mouldings in powdery tones, and the light comes from behind her through a shuttered window, so that her figure stays in soft backlight with blurred edges. She wears a long sand-coloured dress, a white towel wrapped as a turban and dark sunglasses, while black heels are the only sharp accent in a palette that remains light and dusty. Her presence in the space is casual: she leans on the door jamb, turns towards the lens, plays with the empty doorway as if the corridor were a stage seen from a distance.

In the third frame the point of view shifts and the scene opens onto the bathroom: seen from behind, a white towel wrapped at the waist, shoulders and back bare, a tattoo visible on her arm, standing before a window that floods the room with white. Around her are pale cabinets with drawers, a towel on the floor, a slatted radiator on the right: an everyday setting that the diffused light leaves almost free of shadows.

The final images concentrate on the bathtub. The foam rises to the rim and hides part of her body, while in the foreground a wooden tray holds four lit candles and a glass of red wine, the only saturated note in the whole series. Naomi keeps the turban and sunglasses on, holds the glass, leafs through a magazine, looks into the camera or slides the glasses down her nose. The atmosphere is warm and slightly hazy, suspended between domestic intimacy and a deliberate pose.