Bill Jacobson's photographs of the nude body illustrate the ongoing influence of contemporary art movements on photographic creation. The influence of color-field, or stain, painting is evident in the large scale, abstractness, and flatness of Jacobson's nude. The ghostly shape floating in blackness is barely recognizable as a human body. As evanescent as smoke or fog, the out-of-focus image makes reference to earlier photographic movements such as spirit photography, with its ectoplasmic forms, and soft-focus Pictorialism. Jacobson, who was overwhelmed by the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the artistic community, alludes to the fragility of the human body. His blurred technique removes the subject from reality and places it within the realm of dream or fading memory, raising the question of whether the photograph is a representation of reality or a work of human imagination.

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