The Wild Inside

Signed, titled and numbered from edition of 30 on recto.

“The Wild Inside, photographed in my studio on Eldridge Street, NYC, 1989, part of the new Outtake series. The covid shutdown has given me the time and mental space to contemplate… looking back over past images and finding new images of outtakes that were sitting in storage. The new images give a revised glimpse of the performance during the photo shoot. The image is cropped to focus more keenly on the models, and they are in different poses from the original Fox Games. I love how these outtakes expand the experience of the photo shoot. In this case, the woman sitting down at the table is turning to face us as she looks with complicity at the camera. The woman is my friend Diane Dreyfus, a remarkable free spirit who passed away on Sept. 14 this year. She and her partner Billy were my neighbors on Elizabeth Street in New York at the time of this photo. Billy is the calm and patient man sitting at the table across from Diane in the photo. The waiter is my gentle father in law, Frank Luis, who passed away many years ago. I hope that Billy is alive and well somewhere today. The lingering look back with these outtakes has brought me again in touch with these dear departed spirits, reminding me with consolation that photography is the enemy of disappearance and death.” – Sandy Skoglund