Interior of a beauty salon in Sumner, Mississippi, 1976, where a woman sits under a large beige hooded hair dryer reading a copy of True Confessions magazine, her face obscured by the plastic curtain while her reflection is visible in the mirror ahead showing a row of empty chairs and a sink station. The floor is black and white checkered linoleum worn smooth in the walking paths, and a wire rack nearby holds bottles of hairspray and setting lotion in amber and blue glass. The composition uses the mirror to double the space, showing the back of the woman's head and the salon owner in a white smock mixing bleach in the background. Direct flash illuminates the chrome arms of the dryer and the pink vinyl upholstery of the waiting chairs, creating harsh highlights against the shadows under the sinks. Dye-transfer saturation makes the red of the magazine cover vibrate against the institutional green of the walls and the blonde hair visible through the plastic hood, capturing the ritual of transformation and the quiet passage of time in a space dedicated to vanity and maintenance.
eggleston_style
