Details of Love Series
Fuss began to wonder what photograms of the internal organs of a mammal would look like and in 1992, at a time of emotional turmoil in his life, began the series Details of Love. "The rabbit was the perfect animal," explains Fuss, "because it's a creature that absorbs a tremendous amount of symbolism - reproduction, fertility, sacrifice, innocence." The chemical process in the images required that the internal organs be fresh so a steady reserve of rabbit intestines from a local restaurant supplier allowed Fuss to continue his work. In order to get the desired effect, Fuss experimented with laying the intestines on photographic paper for varying lengths of time - from a few hours to a full day and night - often moving them around in the dark. The whole setup was then exposed to a flash of light from a hand-held strobe. The longer the intestines lay on the paper, the more they ate into the surface, destroying the emulsion. Where they were left overnight, the image is pure white with a faint outline of the intestine and where they were placed for only a few hours, a Technicolor impression resulted.