Bill Callahan or Smog in a recent photo by Joanna Newsom (left).

Lee Friedlander’s ‘Shadow Play’ from 1966 (below).

Who is the main subject? In both cases, as the photographer’s shadow is projected upon the depicted person, a new analogy and relationship emerges. Lee Friedlander’s shadow head acquires hair by carefully ‘falling’ upon the woman’s hair. Her coat button becomes his mouth. Ultimately he is the main subject there. Bill Callahan, in the first photo, is embraced by the stretched arm of a shadow-figure in a warm and sensitive gesture of co-existence.

Watch a video of ‘Rock Bottom Riser’ below with Smog and Joanna Newsom at the Parish (Sept. 2006)