Mirror image

Ian Dodd has described his work as 'exploring the magic and the real, the human, erotic and eccentric'. He is a Sydney-based photographer whose work has become iconic, especially 'Wet hair' 1974 which has been reproduced extensively and has come to be seen as one of the most important images of Australian photography from the 1970s. Dodd, like Robert Besanko, is inspired by the fantastical possibilities of everyday life and how to depict this 'other-worldliness' in black-and-white photography.

Looking at 'Mirror image' 1975 one is immediately drawn to the central luminous orb without realising that it is an ordinary dressing table mirror hovering above someone's personal trinkets. This 'destabilising' of what we register as familiar has been described as Dodd's 'alluring' quality ... the light against the dark suggesting a 'sublime presence which is mesmerising as a momentary vision'(1). In this sense the conventional is transposed, made phenomenal and breathtaking. The three photographs selected are potent examples of the photographer's ability to create a sense of inherent mystery within things around us.

1 Denise Mimmocchi, ABC Arts Online – Out of sight, Instalment #3, 2003