Chairs as portraits

Designmuseum Danmark shows its chairs in a row of backlit cases, each one glowing from behind like a specimen. It is hard not to photograph them as portraits: straight on, centered, the white box doing the job of a studio backdrop.

The Eames plywood chair is all warm grain against the cold light. Jacobsen's Lily, with its curling arms, is the opposite, a piece of color sitting in the glow. Both were shot at ISO 12800, because the cases are bright and the room around them is dark. The X2D holds together better up there than it has any right to.