Figure 1 – Giant head sculpture by Antonio Lopez Garcia, Boston, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014

For several years, I have been trying to figure out how to photograph the two giant heads that adorn the entrance to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.  These wonderful visages are by Spanish sculptor Antonio López García. They are, as I said, huge and they also are dramatically disembodied.  One’s immediate reaction is to set them against the giant pillars of the museum or have someone stand in front of them.  Both approaches seem to me to be cliche and hackneyed.  And besides, what seems always to draw me in is the intimacy that contrasts the size.  The faces are intensely black, but their shininess gives them magnificent highlights, and the point seems to be the commanding intensity of feature that demands extreme close-up.  So that is what I show here.  But I remain convinced that there is the perfect light and the perfect way to photograph them – that I have yet to find.