Bruce Weber American, b. 29/3/1946

Two nudes on the flank of a Porsche in the middle of a California hillside gone to lupine: he crouches over her, mouth to her mouth, one hand cupping her far shoulder; she lies back along the curve of the fender with her chin lifted and her hair pouring down the paintwork in one long pale fall. A leather strap is buckled across the folded top. The bodywork is polished enough to hold a ghost of them both, and behind, the hills go soft in the glare while the sky burns out to white.

It is an advertisement for nothing, which is exactly its confidence. Every element an eighties campaign would have used is here, the machine, the couple, the golden coast, the sex, and the product has simply been removed, leaving the fantasy running on its own. Weber had spent the decade teaching American fashion to sell longing rather than clothes, and the car does the work of a brand without being one: dark, expensive, warm from the sun.

This belongs to the years when his editorial work ran at a length no photographer is given now, whole portfolios shot in the Adirondacks one month and on some coast the next, and its nudity passed because it looked like health. This picture is less wholesome than it pretends. Her throat is offered, her eyes are closed, her hand lies flat against his forearm. She is not being photographed making love. She is being photographed being adored, which was always the better product.