Jamie's Back

by Scott Caan

In Volume 1 of Scott Caan's collection of photographs I was drawn to and inspired by so many of the people and places that he captured. The female portraits, however, I found to be common, dull, and lackluster. The photographs seemed to all have been shot in the same lighting, as if the photo shoots all occurred in one self-indulgent night of debauchery where the women are all the same; interchangeable and known only by their first name which for some reason made me think of Curly's Wife from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. The women all possessed the same hair, same body type, same perfect face, same glassy look in their eyes. I was disappointed. I expected more. Out of all the photos in that section only two stood out, Jamie's Back was one of those. It's simplicity is what makes it and it is one of the best photographs in the entire book.