Click on the picture for a bigger, higher res version. It’s worth it trust me.
After staring at this picture for too long i decided to look into it a little more. First I found out it was the cover of a greatest hits album put out in 1986 on Island Records called ‘Island Life’ (get it?). The album itself is a decent introduction to what Grace Jones did as a singer but is too full of 70’s european disco schlock to listen all the way through.
Next thing I found out was that the position she is in is a ballet move called an Arabesque and that while it certainly looks impressive it is also impossible.
The picture was taken by a photographer named Jean Paul Goude who saw an intriguing subject in the model/ actress/ singer. He notes about that picture that “…unless you are extraordinarily supple, you cannot do this arabesque. The main point is that Grace couldn’t do it, and that’s the basis of my entire work: creating a credible illusion.”
Goude photographed Jones in a variety of positions using boxes to hold up parts of her body and then combined the images in a montage that eventually became the amazing image that you see above. Here is the mock up:
Do I feel duped? Not at all. I think Goude did an amazing job especially considering it was all done before the Photoshop times of today when, with every amazing image, someone asks “Is that photoshopped?”.
January 2, 2008 at 10:20 am
awesome
February 22, 2008 at 5:58 am
I was just browsing for a Grace Jones CD cover image, then I found your little article about the cover I was looking for. A nice find, very interesting!
March 21, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Ditto to what Markus said. Bravo! Great post, on a fascinating shoot. :o)
April 15, 2008 at 10:39 am
Trully magnificent.
May 16, 2008 at 3:19 am
wow, that’s really neat. thanks for sharing! :]
June 11, 2008 at 11:24 pm
That’s really awesome, but her shadow is totally out of wack. I mean, seriously.
June 11, 2008 at 11:53 pm
excellent.. and insane.. all this work for! 🙂
June 12, 2008 at 12:05 am
Apparently not quite an arabesque:
“In classical ballet, the term arabesque indicates a position of the body where the dancer stands on one leg, while the other leg is extended behind the body, with both knees straight.”
It’s still an impressive position, and an impressive photograph, but it’s not technically an arabesque!
November 6, 2013 at 1:43 pm
If it were turned out, it would be an “attitude” … if this were Horton technique, we might call this stag position. In yoga this reminds me of revolved half moon with a bent leg.
June 12, 2008 at 12:19 am
If you watch the video to Slave to the Rhythm (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bj4xWuM86GE) you can see more old photo chopping in action.
June 12, 2008 at 12:23 am
how did he make the final piece?
June 12, 2008 at 12:53 am
Great stuff, but they shouldn’t have added so much blue to the final piece. It deadens it.
June 12, 2008 at 12:57 am
that’s cool!
June 12, 2008 at 1:03 am
Ugh. Downvoted for making me look at Grace Jones’ bare ass.
June 12, 2008 at 1:07 am
I would have loved more detail on the technicalities of going from the choppy montage to the smooth final thing…
June 12, 2008 at 1:52 am
I remember when this album came out, we didn’t even think about it at the time we just assumed that Grace Jones had managed to get into the position. A great shot and fantastic retouching, totally convincing
June 12, 2008 at 2:34 am
if you observe the shadows carefully, you can see that this is not a real picture. The shadow of her right hand indicates that the light source is to the right and the shadow of her left leg indicates that the light source is to the left. nice work though
June 12, 2008 at 3:55 am
i like it very very much!
June 12, 2008 at 4:21 am
That’s pretty amazing, any idea what program he used to put the images together?
June 12, 2008 at 4:56 am
nice… i really liked the image with the cut-paste in progress!!
[http://thephotoshopper.blogspot.com]
June 12, 2008 at 5:05 am
‘Click on the picture for a bigger, higher res version. It’s worth it trust me.’
I didn’t get any chance : moving my mouse over said picture activated the extremely annoying SnapShot plugin and I stopped immediately to write this comment after taking a deep breath to suppress strong language …
On principle I avoid all blogs / sites with a Snapshot plugin : please get rid of it. It serves no relevant purpose and contributes nothing to good content : it merely distracts from it.
Consider implementing a Lightbox plugin instead …
June 12, 2008 at 5:45 am
[…] 12/06/2008 16:45, Posted in Junk food, From the era when there was no Photoshop. […]
June 12, 2008 at 6:48 am
Fun! Nice post!
June 12, 2008 at 6:57 am
Amazing image.
June 12, 2008 at 8:11 am
Interesting method. Very cool…computers seem to make us lazy today compared with what people had to do back then.
June 12, 2008 at 8:25 am
My fave part of this photo is that her microphone is plugged into a power outlet.
I’m not sure why you needed to diss her music. I even used a track from this album (La Vie En Rose) in a movie I made many years ago and everyone used to ask me who it was — they loved it.
And to the person who didn’t like how blue the photo is, check out Island Life 2 — http://www.amazon.com/Island-Life-2-Grace-Jones/dp/B00004UH73/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1213287880&sr=8-2
June 12, 2008 at 8:45 am
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June 12, 2008 at 9:07 am
I hope this at least partially silences purists who feel that any Photoshop equals some kind of deficiency in the photographer’s skill. The fact of the matter is that a photographer’s job is to create compelling images, not to create compelling images only in-camera.
June 12, 2008 at 9:18 am
[…] This article has slightly disappointed me given how iconic the image on Grace Jones’ album is… but it’s now become interesting for other reasons. […]
June 12, 2008 at 10:00 am
when i saw this i thought it looked like the Marc Jacobs/Naomi Campbell editorial in september 2007 issue of Harpers Bazaar. turns out it was the same photographer. http://designscene.blogspot.com/2007/09/naomi-campbell-and-marc-jacobs-by-jean.html
June 12, 2008 at 10:15 am
Notice her left creates no shadow.
June 12, 2008 at 10:53 am
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June 12, 2008 at 12:10 pm
[…] é velha mas imperdÃvel, aqui tem o passo a passo da foto da capa do disco da Grace Jones, feita pelo fotógrafo Jean Paul Goude. […]
June 12, 2008 at 1:01 pm
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June 12, 2008 at 1:50 pm
lol dartanien, well spotted.
That ballet move looks like it wouldn’t be that hard to do for a ballerina.
June 12, 2008 at 2:22 pm
[…] Nice post about deconstructing the original cover photo for Grace Jones album Island Life – one of my favorite seminal New Wave album covers. Linky. […]
June 12, 2008 at 2:36 pm
For those wondering how the final thing was put together, it probably involved an airbrush.
June 12, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I bet you I could do an arabesque if someone plugged my mic into a mains socket.
June 12, 2008 at 6:30 pm
[…] This is fascinating me right now… « My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog (tags: photography design art photoshop graphic music hack article) […]
June 13, 2008 at 2:31 am
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June 13, 2008 at 7:00 am
With the leg bent like that, its actually called an Attitude, not an Arabesque. In an Arabesque, as someone else mentioned, the leg would be straight.
Also, in a proper attitude, rather than her foot/heel being towards the ceiling, her leg would be rotated at the hip so that the sole of her foot is pointing more towards the camera, and also her supporting leg would need to be straighter.
A bit more like this:
/ballerina rant.
June 13, 2008 at 9:48 am
Grace is to hot. watch out ya’ll she’ll burn ya
June 13, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Has anyone noticed that the shadow is made wrong?
Her left arm does not cast a shadow but every other part does.
June 14, 2008 at 7:48 am
I’d love to see video of people trying to do that pose.
June 14, 2008 at 2:57 pm
wow.. this is so amazing.. the time it maust have taken and the thought behind it is beautiful (so is she! haha )
great stuff
June 15, 2008 at 10:52 am
[…] The Impossible Pose, Before Photoshop June 15, 2008 at 6:51 pm | In Kinesthetics, Photography | Tags: arabesque, grace jones, Kinesthetics, Photography, photoshop Grace Jones does the impossible, before Photoshop made it easy. […]
June 16, 2008 at 6:14 am
Photoshopped
June 16, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Jean Paul Goude was Grace Jones’ first husband of which they have a son, Alfie. Goude’s shot Grace many many times and is still a very famous photographer esp. in France.
July 1, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Grace Jones scares me
especially in Conan The Destroyer
July 3, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Hummmmmmmm, and where in the world is Carmem Sandiego?
July 6, 2008 at 1:51 pm
The image is what matters. How they got it is interesting, but not important. No one cares how hard you work, Photoshop or otherwise. Make good images.
July 10, 2008 at 4:44 am
[…] I wont spoil anything, but if you’re a designer, artist or just a human with questions, please read the article. […]
July 11, 2008 at 8:35 am
[…] – This is fascinating me right now… « My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog (tags: […]
July 12, 2008 at 1:42 pm
[…] This is fascinating me right now… « My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog […]
August 6, 2008 at 8:43 am
This is very unique picture!!!
+++++ to author
mega coool!
Thanks
January 8, 2009 at 8:48 pm
I don’t see how this is “impossible” though I completely understand that it was impossible for the person being photographed I don’t think it’s impossible for all.
For example here is a very similar pose successfully executed, As you can see it would only take a few slight angle adjustments to match the topic pic
January 20, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Damn. Everyone’s a critic, lol.
I am amazed by the number of people that couldn’t just let the article be what it was, and simply be fascinated by a beautiful piece of art, which is what this album cover is!
I agree with you, it is an amazing, fascinating picture, and the way it was done, without all the technology we have today, to still produce such a seamless picture is really freakin cool.
I couldn’t get over how flawless her body looked, almost as if it was really a porcelain sculpture of Grace Jones, instead of actually being her.
February 2, 2009 at 9:19 am
Calling Jean-Paul Goude just “a photographer” is selling him a bit short. He started as an illustrator, has directed videos and advertising films (Chanel, Citroën, Perrier), does art direction and graphic design (Esquire magazine), and even choreography.
February 13, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Just doing a search on Grace jones and came across these images – one word: awesome.
February 26, 2009 at 1:52 pm
great job.
March 19, 2009 at 10:11 am
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March 24, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Not quite an arabesque– more like a spiral. And that’s actually a common modern dance position. Not impossible.
But I love Grace Jones. Great photo!
March 24, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Great stuff (on reddit right now – which is how I’m coming across it almost 2 years later.)
That’s the sad thing about Photoshop – it’s taken out the magic of this type of manipulation. If someone did a photo like this today – people would just say “it’s photoshopped” and move on.
March 24, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Shooped.
I can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few shoops in my time.
March 24, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I would do her.
March 24, 2009 at 8:39 pm
You can tell by the pixels.
March 25, 2009 at 2:01 am
[…] March 25, 2009 1) Amazing Photo of Grace Jones and Where It Came From […]
March 25, 2009 at 4:03 am
And no photoshop ?! WOW !
March 25, 2009 at 5:06 am
Now that’s a pound of browned round.
March 27, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Photoshop 0.1b for Commodore 64! 😛
Amazing work!
March 28, 2009 at 7:59 pm
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June 3, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Sweet blog. I never know what I am going to come across next. I think you should do more posting as you have some pretty intelligent stuff to say.
I’ll be watching you . 🙂
July 20, 2009 at 5:38 am
[…] Aggoirnamento: pare che la prima in realtà sia un bellissimo fotomontaggio. […]
July 30, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Hi
where it is Grace Jones, I Miaa her.
any vody kow wehre dhe is.
Thanks
Dilso
September 10, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. 🙂 Cheers! Sandra. R.
November 8, 2009 at 5:36 am
This is a marvellously creative image (regardless of the technical approach and execution) Jean Paul Goude’s work has always been exciting and edgy and the photo editing and slicing technique still looks great today! Even with the rough edges shown (ie: Slave to the Rhythm album cover) I never worried over the details of how it was done. The final image and what it says to you (the viewer) is all that matters.
To all the current Phtoshoppers out there who live and breath in digital colour… context is everything. You cannot judge effects and techniques of the day to modern approaches. You may as well say the animation in King Kong is ‘poor’ compared to The Matrix or the new Peter Jackson version. It is a pointless (and embaressingly ignorant attitude) What Jean Paul Goude did here (with whatever technique and equipment used) was astoundingly creative and I would challenge any supposed graphic artist of today to show at least a ounce (or kilo) of his talent today.
”shopped’ is such a lazy term of abuse, especially when so wildy out of context as this image. Check your Wikipedia page on the first Adobe release (coding 1987, release 1990) and then realise that the album cover here was released in 1985. You can’t state the fact in black and white (two bit bitmap?) clearer than that.
Analogue rules. Or at least holds it’s own.
February 12, 2010 at 9:40 am
I don’t think you can fully appreciate all the hard work that goes into this.. WOW
February 24, 2010 at 2:21 pm
[…] que le premier post est un hommage à Jean-Paul Good et à sa célébrissime photo de Grace Jones (trucage réalisé pour la pochette du disque « Island Life » sorti en 1986). Amber […]
February 26, 2010 at 8:21 pm
[…] When Kanye launched his new blog featuring a photo of his girlfriend/muse/girl that dances w/girls Amber Rose, people were able to immediately identify the inspiration of the photo. On first look, it’s clear to see that Amber falls way short of pulling off the amazing contortion that Grace exhibited on her album cover. However, a simple google and an great article from sleevage shows why no onw has been able to match Grace’s image in 30 years. (more info) […]
March 19, 2010 at 11:27 am
[…] although in retrospect that post does appear to be nigh-on impossible. Check the full story over at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog, and gain some appreciation for the artists of the pre-Photoshop […]
August 11, 2012 at 9:36 am
Reblogged this on rozewittaz and commented:
I absolutely HEART Grace Jones! She is a style icon and fellow Yardie. Super me GUSTA!
February 10, 2013 at 5:15 am
[…] Via My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog: […]
December 19, 2013 at 7:00 pm
The music on this album is at least as brilliant as the cover. I’d give it another 25 spins if I were you dear blogger!
February 4, 2014 at 11:47 am
[…] Via My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog: […]
August 25, 2014 at 11:03 pm
Awesome photo of an awesome woman by an excellent photographer. The rest is secondary but amazing as well, when researched, because it was actual manual work and not just a few computer clicks with a mouse.
November 12, 2014 at 2:34 pm
[…] wondering how he and Grace Jones achieved that gravity-defying feat back before photoshop existed, My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog documented the clever way in which Goude was able to nail that […]