the unmade bed

In a previous post, I mentioned Geoff Dyer's book, "The Ongoing Moment." This is the book where he discusses how photographers have carried on unconscious conversations by shooting the same subjects over and over and in so doing, creating several photographic memes.

One subject he discusses is the 'unmade bed'. Many photographers have shot unmade beds. Dyer talks about it being a quintessential representation of absence, of what was here and now is not. It's one of the strongest ways to get that reverberation across.

"The unmade bed's capacity to suggest its absent occupant made it a natural choice for the task Dorothea Lange assigned her students while teaching photography at the California Institute of Fine Arts in 1957-8: to take a photograph of a personal environment with no people in int. News of the assignment found its way to Imogen Cunningham, who arranged some hairpins on her bed - made it, in other words, made it look unmade - and photographed the result. Cunningham sent a contact print to Lange as a gift and homage." from The Ongoing Moment, Geoff Dyer

Here's Cunninham's "Unmade Bed" from 1957


I've taken a lot of unmade bed pictures over the years. Some because I was interested in capture the white of the sheets against the white of the comforter. Some because it was a beautiful morning and I'd just woken up and the light was streaming in and I couldn't help but want to preserve that lovely place where I'd just been. More recently, in the past years as I've been traveling more, I'd take pictures of my hotel bed after I'd been in it and send it back to Anthony. It was a small way of letting him see me. Where I was, where I'd been, what I was doing. I was absent in the picture, but absolutely present too. Here are a couple I could find.



some hotel somewhere


another hotel, I think LA actually