I’ve never watched a full Jim Jarmusch film, but then a lot of the time you don’t have to. I’ve seen segments of Coffee and Cigarettes – where Wutang Clan get served in a diner by Bill “Groundhog Day, Ghostbusting-ass” Murray, or where the unbearable, brilliant awkwardness of a conversation between Tom Waits and Iggy Pop is palpable – and the section of Nigh On Earth where Winona Ryder’s gum-chewing, swearing cab driver turns down the offer of Hollywood stardom to follow her dream of becoming a mechanic. Jarmusch sees life not as one great story made up of chapters, but as it more accurately is: a series of short stories that each have beginnings and ends, that flow on and interrelate. Jarmusch once said, “life has no plot, why must films or fiction?” It was that notion that inspired Fran Dominguez to shoot Stranger than Paradise – titled after the film of the same name – a shoot where the images are visually coherent but there’s no real plot to be found. Sara Marie Winther’s incomplete styling adds to the open-endedness of the images, with nudity and lingerie and dresses and jackets all featuring, but not all at once. Click the thumbnails for full pictures: Featuring model Ivalu, Dominguez’s shoot is like a random series of moments in life rather than any story, and deliberately so. Like Jarmusch’s films, that makes it – in a way – easier to relate to. You can view it in full at the gallery.
