I am unable to source photographer or performers for this piece, though if one is inclined to look there is a watermark in the corner. I did try, I wouldn't want to denigrate these folks for doing sex work, I just sincerely can't identify anything about this piece.
And in a way that's what I like about this picture. I'll bet 9 out of 10 people would instantly recognize this as obviously coming from some pornographic source, but it is difficult to put a finger on exactly where that certainty comes from. Everyone in the photo is fully clothed, but there's a certain je ne sais quoi of pornography to it that is completely unmistakable.
Once you think about it there are plenty of details to pull out: the lighting is flat, the set is haphazardly arranged, the costumes are ill-fitting in a way that suggests they won't be worn for very long. The three principal figures are all emoting unnaturally. Only the man in the background seems to have anything like a genuine expression on his face, and his whole posture exudes big "I'm looking forward to having sex" energy. None of which is to denigrate the craft involved, but the people who participated in the production of this photograph had a certain set of priorities.
Identifying these details is all post hoc rationalization for knowledge we already have: that this picture is clearly pornography. We noticed, but we didn't know why we noticed, and that's interesting to me.
I believe Jim Holloway is the artist on this piece, from the D&D module B4: The Lost City. I like it for being an example of the simple line art that used to be common before the advent of digital tools, and for the goofy smiling dwarf.
There is an immense value in art that is comprehensible to the non-artist, or novice artist. When I look at this piece I can imagine the process of making it. It's just lines, after all. The sort I can easily make on any sheet of paper. The piece is enhanced with shading, and the lines are of varying degrees of thickness, but I can trace the shape with my eyes and see how one bit connects to the next. Seeing pieces like this makes me want to draw, because it makes me feel like I could someday be capable of making it myself.
Highly refined digital art has its place, but I'm sad to see art like this becoming less and less common.
The goofy smiling dwarf I like because they are a goofy smiling dwarf. Early D&D didn't take itself too seriously, and it's a loss to the hobby that the industry has largely lost its general lightheartedness.
Mario Pucic took this photograph, for a series called "No Monuments While Traveling." Most photography I see in my day to day life has animals, people, or nature as its subject. The sheer novelty of photographs with any other subject tends to pique my interest. I love to see people's desks, their shelves, their Christmas decorations. I feel like I empathize more with a person's environment than I do with their face.
The TV is obviously the focus here. Obviously old to us, but still anachronistic in being the most advanced technology in the scene. An intruder, clearly not in its proper place, but powered by a cable strewn messily across the floor. Yet, its intrusion into this space has lasted long enough that it has started to accrue clutter on top of itself in the form of a lamp.
Other details begin to filter through. The odd tackiness of the angel sticker on the cabinet. The peculiar construction of that brick bench the TV is resting on. I wonder what those books are, what that model device on the mantle is, and at what quirk of personality prompts a person to buy identical woolen lace cloths to drape over the shelves inside a cabinet.
It's nice to think about the person who assembled this space without being in the space, or having any chance to learn the truth or falsehood of my suppositions.
—Nick LS Whelan
February 14, 2021