1. Jo Ann Callis uses a variety of mediums to represent her vision of her subjects. In the area of her photographs, she has a collection of both black and white, colored, and over-saturated works. Her photos vary in size anywhere from 8x9" to 40x30". Callis seems to switch between having a vertical and horizontal frame, depending on the subject's directional position.
2. The above three photographs are a selection from Callis' photo book titled Other Rooms from her Early Color collection. This specific collection showcased themes of sexuality and "unconventional" beauty in the human body. The first photo shows a woman laying on a bed in a quite submissive position, wearing a form-fitting cropped faux leather top concealing her breasts. The second photo shows another woman, perhaps the same model, facing down onto a pillow and bed, the bones of her spine and back vaguely exposed, and the photo itself has a sense of symmetry. The third photo shows a man with his shirt unbuttoned, face cut off into the darkness standing in a casual position at an unclear background. All three photos display a degree of nudity in an assumed enclosed private space, exploring the line between sexual desire and contemplation within our private lives.
3. Callis' photos evoke a sense of mystery to me. Her use of contrast between gold, fleshy tones and dark shadows elicits a strange, but almost natural interest to me. The positions of these models aren't what you see in typical sex or nude-related media. Callis' other works from this collection contain more nudity than shown in these models, but all of them (with the exception of the first photo) have their face blacked out, turned away, or covered, mostly due to her wanting audiences to focus primarily on the bodies in an artful and natural form. It comes off as somewhat creepy to me, but more so intriguing in its air of mystery.
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