Elegant Idleness, The Slim Arrons Perspective

When Aarons died in 2006 at the age of 89, the scenes in his photographs already looked like vestiges of a bygone era. No one was holding a cellphone and preparing to pose for a selfie in the soft evening light. Nor was anyone talking on the phone, checking for messages or scrolling through timelines. What people did do back then were have all kinds of affairs and wild parties that went on into the wee hours.  And they sunbathed endlessly without giving a thought to skin cancer or sunscreen factors.

Women were among his most frequent subjects and he photographed them in bright dresses, a bikini or nothing at all. "I don't do fashion," he said, "I take photos of people in their own clothes and that becomes fashion."

His photos are an inside peek into an elite echelon interacting with each other, playing backgammon by the pool, laughing, talking, napping. Of course real life wasn't nearly as harmonious, but in Slim Aarons' idealized images, life was one long, lazy summer afternoon.

*Excerpted from GG Magazine 2/24