Irving Penn, Martha Graham, New York, 1948 Penn had already begun to use the studio as an environment in which the viewer is allowed to see the electrical cables, edges of backdrops, and the photographic detritus randomly scattered along the floor. This particular series, however, used the concept of a sharper-than-90-degree corner in which the subjects were forced to position themselves into Penn’s geometry.

Photograph: Irving Penn/Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery