This picture really bothers me. In the gallery, the words, “Extreme Beauty, New York, L’Oreal, Vogue, 1986-2007” were next to this picture. I literally stared at this picture for ten minutes on my laptop, zoomed in and out, but I found it so hard to see what Irving Penn was trying to portray as “extreme beauty.” Here is a picture of a dead turkey’s head. Instead of seeing beauty, I find the head to be very creepy. The picture shows many intricate details; you can see the hairs, the beak, the beady eye, and the bumpy skin texture so clearly. What also prevented me the most from seeing any beauty here is the expression of the turkey. The beady eye makes it look as if it was very cautious and angry. I have recently been researching on L’Oreal for a paper, and they emphasize on encouraging people to embrace their “unique beauty.” Even though I really don’t like this picture, I think Irving Penn is trying to make us realize that everyone and everything has a unique, beautiful feature. I still find it hard to see, but I think part of the beauty is the small details that you can see so clearly. And since the background is white, the details of the texture and the color of the head pops out even more; you can see clearly the different shades on the head and the neck. For me, this picture also challenges me and makes me feel slightly guilty; I feel that L’Oreal might have used this picture because it wants to challenge its readers to embrace the unique beauty of the people and things we see around us, no matter how hard it is for us to see.
This is my opinion of what Penn was trying to portray as beauty in this picture. What do you guys think ?