The Dark Knight

Yesterday, I had the chance to say hello to Christopher Morris at the VII Seminar in Brooklyn.  (I'm hoping to do a couple of posts on the NY Photo Festival …  as soon as I work off my sleep debt.)

In particular, I'm interested in this Morris shot TIME used for their otherwise-silly 100 Most Influential People list.  (How they could juxtapose this shot alongside a pearly Bush tribute by the slimy Silvio Berlusconi is beyond me. I guess nobody Stateside would offer the pen.)

If Bush is scraping bottom in terms of popular opinion, I can't say I've seen much correspondence when it comes to the visuals — which makes Morris that much more notable an exception. In an example that is less subtle than his usual approach, but laudable for its audacity, we see Bush (finally) as the shadow or the dark knight. 

With Obama on the verge of the Dem nomination and along with it, the prospect of a fundamental shift in the political atmosphere, the sense of this shot is that Bush — guaranteed now to soon disappear — is being eclipsed by his own dark brand of paranoia.

TIME 100 – Complete List (TIME)

(image: Christopher Morris / VII for TIME)