The bodybuilder had been quietly rehabilitated by the end of the century, moved from the back pages of physique magazines toward the front of fashion, and Weber sets one here atop a horse. The man stands barefoot on a tooled Western saddle, balanced on the broad back of a dark horse, wearing nothing but a small dark brief. He faces the light, chin raised, his gaze fixed on something past the frame. It is an absurd and wonderful premise, delivered with a completely straight face.
The organization is vertical and frankly monumental. The figure fills the height of the frame like a column, the muscled legs and torso stacked into a single upright line, and the treeline behind sits low so that he rises against a pale sky. Weber places the ornate saddle, with its silver conchos and tooled leather, directly beneath the bare feet, a base as worked as a pedestal. The soft foliage keeps every hard edge on the body; nothing competes with the modeling of the light along the flank and the raised arm.
Weber understood, better than most, that the American male could be photographed as a monument without quite losing his sense of humor, and that a horse and a saddle could turn a gym physique into an equestrian statue. The pose quotes the heroic bronze; the setting undercuts it just enough to keep the picture alive. This is a gelatin silver print, and the silver gives the skin its even, sculptural sheen while holding the fine tooling of the leather below. The joke and the grandeur are offered at the same steady pitch.
The bodybuilder had been quietly rehabilitated by the end of the century, moved from the back pages of physique magazines toward the front of fashion, and Weber sets one here atop a horse. The man stands barefoot on a tooled Western saddle, balanced on the broad back of a dark horse, wearing nothing but a small dark brief. He faces the light, chin raised, his gaze fixed on something past the frame. It is an absurd and wonderful premise, delivered with a completely straight face.
The organization is vertical and frankly monumental. The figure fills the height of the frame like a column, the muscled legs and torso stacked into a single upright line, and the treeline behind sits low so that he rises against a pale sky. Weber places the ornate saddle, with its silver conchos and tooled leather, directly beneath the bare feet, a base as worked as a pedestal. The soft foliage keeps every hard edge on the body; nothing competes with the modeling of the light along the flank and the raised arm.
Weber understood, better than most, that the American male could be photographed as a monument without quite losing his sense of humor, and that a horse and a saddle could turn a gym physique into an equestrian statue. The pose quotes the heroic bronze; the setting undercuts it just enough to keep the picture alive. This is a gelatin silver print, and the silver gives the skin its even, sculptural sheen while holding the fine tooling of the leather below. The joke and the grandeur are offered at the same steady pitch.