At the Snowfall Café...

... you can write about whatever you want. 

What is the controversy about this magazine cover at British Vogue?

Consider the question for yourself before reading the criticisms.

At Instagram, British Vogue says: "The nine models gracing the cover are representative of an ongoing seismic shift that became more pronounced on the SS22 runways; awash with dark-skinned models whose African heritage stretched from Senegal to Rwanda to South Sudan to Nigeria to Ethiopia. For an industry long criticized for its lack of diversity, as well as for perpetuating beauty standards seen through a Eurocentric lens, this change is momentous."

At CNN, a writer based in Nigeria says: 

Why are the models depicted in a dark and ominous tableau, the lighting so obscure to the point they are almost indistinguishable on a cover meant to celebrate their individuality? Why were they dressed all in black, giving a funereal air, and an almost ghoulish, otherworldly appearance?

Why were they sporting strangely-coiffed wigs? Many of these women wear their natural hair normally and it would have been great to see that reflected on a cover celebrating African beauty. Additionally, on the cover, the models' skin color appeared to be several shades darker than their normal skin tone.

The photographs were taken by Afro-Brazilian photographer Rafael Pavarotti, and the images -- published in numerous glossy magazines over the years -- are consistent with his visual style of presenting Black skin in an ultra-dark manner....

But the lighting, styling, and makeup, which purposefully exaggerated the models' already dark skin tones, reduced their distinguishing features and presented a homogenized look. Was this the best way to celebrate Black beauty?...

Should we ask what's the best way to celebrate black beauty or what's the vision of the artist/photographer? Pavarotti is black, so to push him back and say he's doing it wrong is to reject a black vision, to put him in a lower position that all the photographers whose visions are respected. And yet, the artist and model relationship has long been a matter of critique, and Pavorotti shouldn't get special immunity from criticism.

Many online critics felt the images were fetishized and pandering to a White gaze, ironic, considering the editorial team behind them consisted almost entirely of people of African descent. 

Ghanaian writer Natasha Akua wrote in a private message on Instagram: "When I saw it I immediately was shocked ... I feel like I know what statement he was trying to make visually but turning these black models into this strange tableau straight out of a horror movie just felt instinctively wrong." 

"Why darken their skin beyond recognition?" she asked. "To make some statement about being unapologetically black? Unapologetically black means being who you are and does not require this manner of hyperbole." 

"I find the lighting and tones beautiful," Daniel Emuna wrote. "But my personal complaint is that publications and brands are constantly communicating that the deepest darkest hue in complexion represents the truest essence of Blackness or even Africanness. This is clearly a mark of the white gaze."

Sunrise — 7:24, 7:29.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

Sunrise — 7:20.

It was too cold for a full-scale sunrise run this morning, but I bundled up for a short walk to a vantage point.

I liked the view out over the frost-coated cattails...

The extra steam from the University power plant did the diffusion work normally performed by clouds...

 

You can see all the clear sky...

 

Meade was waiting for me in the truck, and he took this shot as the sun broke through...

 

He assures me that I am in that picture. 

Here's how the breakthrough of the sun looked to me....

Sunrise — 7:23.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. 

Bonus picture from yesterday, captured by Meade:

  

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can talk about whatever you like.

Sunrise panorama.

Time: 7:21.

Icy Lake Mendota in the morning and afternoon.

It finally warmed up enough to do the sunrise run...

... about 30° at 7:27 when I took that photograph. 

Later, we drove out to a place in Madison that I'd never even noticed before, Governor's Island:

 

This is land that had belonged to a governor in the 19th century, that became the Wisconsin Hospital for the Insane, later called Mendota Mental Health Institute. It's where Ed Gein lived out his last years. 

We enjoyed our sojourn around the beautifully scenic location. It was about 40° at 3:20, and we walked out onto the Lake Mendota ice... just a little way...

 

Watch out, if you go. There are, I hear, some "puddles." 

I liked the view from the bluff...

 

Notice how the ice piles up in frozen "waves" along the shore. 

We walked the entire loop of the small island, then drove home around to our side of the lake, where we got a glimpse of the sunset... 

... as we entered the car wash:

ADDED: One more photo. This one by Meade:

At the Black Ice Café... you can talk about whatever you want.

It finally warmed up enough that I could take an afternoon walk. I hadn't seen the lake in 7 days, and those very cold days had transformed the lake:

There's some beautiful glassy-clear ice on the lake. Look out there:

2 ice skaters with 2 dogs:

Higher up, the prairie and the sunset:

"The brandy snifter portrait is as American as hip-hop, acid-washed jeans and plastic-covered sofas."

"A photo in that style could conjure the same feelings that oversize shoulder pads or a Jheri curl would: cringe. In 2001, the motif was spoofed by 'Saturday Night Live' in a skit that featured Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Fallon, called 'Put It in a Brandy Snifter.' But in the 1980s and 1990s, the brandy snifter photo was an innovative, attainable luxury, and it became ubiquitous in some communities. Its cultural significance is closely tied to the ambitions of the American working class. Mr. Adams’s tribute to his mother also honored the countless other people who see that image and immediately recognize and identify with it, as I did. I wore my peach Easter dress from earlier that year. My mother tied my hair in a ponytail and curled my bangs to the side. My siblings wore polo shirts. The day before, I had applied a glow-in-the-dark, temporary tattoo I got in a box of Rude Dudes bubble gum to my cheek. My face has never been scrubbed harder than Mom scrubbed it clean that day...."

Writes Sandra E. Garcia in "What New Yorkers See in This Portrait of the Mayor’s Mother/Dorothy Mae Adams-Streeter posed for a portrait at her 75th birthday party. Her image, floating in a brandy snifter, has a powerful resonance" (NYT).

Watch the SNL skit here. It crudely mocks low-class white people who think that superimposing a brandy snifter on a photographed portrait is gorgeous and elegant. But now we're asked to show respect for black people who've been admiring the same photography. Fine.

I am encountering brandy snifter photography for the first time, and I'm completely distracted by the inaptness of the association with drinking alcohol. Why would you want the image of your child or your elderly mother inside a brandy glass?! But I can see that people have been doing this for 40 years, and I'm showing that I don't know any of them well enough to have seen that these are their treasured family portraits. The new mayor of New York City is displaying one of his mother, and I am not going to make fun of that photograph.