Immediately fascinating at first sight, Elliott without doubt created another timeless classic with his 1974 memento mori "Remorse". Obviously an image drenched with substance (rare in Modern Art) the picture portrays a tremendous feeling of guilt and eleventh hour regret. The flying hand symbolises man shaking off his mortal coil (Elliott read Shakespeare as a teenager) and in the moment of death trying to get back in through an obviously closed and fortified door. The door can be seen as representing conscience or as a symbolic representation of death's own door.

The hand clutches the door with such desperation that the tendons clearly stand up in the hand which is clearly metamorphosing into a non-physical state.
On a technical note, Elliott perfected his magical masking device to create this image and discovered much to his amazement that having spent weeks making it 100% precise and perfect - it did not work! Drawing on his vast experience (even then) of Photography and Light, Elliott concluded that the error was being caused by refraction of light hitting the edge of the mask and so learned to set his invention "slightly off" and sure enough this yielded seamless results.
Another technical innovation here is the use of 'Shadow Colouration' which gives the image its marvellous purple shade in the shadows. It should be understood that this gives the reverse effect of shooting through a filter, which colours highlight areas. Purple of course is very much a spiritual colour and the purple gives an alternative reality look. 'Remorse' often elicits extreme reactions.
The brief outline given here gives some insight into Elliott's manic attention to detail and the staggering complexity, which often underpins deceptively simple images. Worth remembering this photograph predates Photoshop by 16 years.

Almost half a century old, the photograph is undoubtedly a highly collectible classic.

READ THE 11,000 WORD
SUMPTUOUSLY ILLUSTRATED ESSAY
ON REMORSE
WRITTEN BY JAMES ELLIOTT
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