The Last Frame

Bert Stern, self-taught American commercial photographer, died on 26^th June 2013.   A contemporary of Avedon and Penn, his most famous piece of work was The Last Sitting; a huge collection of photographs of Marilyn Monroe he took for American Vogue just six weeks before her death and which he first published in 1982 and again in 2000.

Marilyn actually died in between the photography session and the publication of her photographs in Vogue, which may be why they selected pictures of her wearing a black dress.  What is interesting about The Last Sitting is that when he published the book he left in the images Monroe had discarded because she didn't like them.

So what is different about these specific images to make Marilyn physically scratch through them so that they would not be used?  Just as there are conspiracy theories around the circumstances of her death we can’t help but wonder if she damaged these images simply because they weren’t her favorites or if she felt they did not portray her as the perfect Hollywood pinup?  Would they have had a negative impact with her fans?  What do you think?  Can you see the difference in these comparable images?  Personally, I think that one of the strengths of The Last Sitting is that it gives us an insight into Marilyn’s perspective of herself.  Many of us do not like our own photographs, is this because we see ourselves so differently from the images in front of us? I think she had the right to do that as we all feel the pressure to project the most positive images of ourselves that we can.  But all said and done there doesn't seem much difference between the images she liked and disliked.