Leica LTM Newbie dives deeper into Leica madness (WARNING nudity inside)

[nikon_sam]

Sanders,

Allow me to state the obvious...your wife is beautiful...and please tell her I said so...I love the "Penn Station" shot...she has many sides to her and I can see why you photograph her...
New Rule...you must post a new picture of your wife every month...
Thanks...

 

[john neal]

I would like to be associated with the remarks of the last speaker - and definitely second the motion re pictures of your wife on a regular basis.

On the tcheck thing - it is obviously nothing to do with Mrs McNew, but could it just be a scam to get us all googling and buying pron?

 

[alternatve]

funny guy, thats not your pic, it's Marketa Belonoha, a well known sfot-core tcheck model, i can give you links to 1000's of her pics. Nice try buddy

A person gracefully posts an artistic nude picture of someone close to him for us to be astounded by the quality of a 70 year old camera and lens and this is how he is repayed? Away with you!

 

[Ken Ford]

I have to admit I Googled Marketa Belonoha - no resemblance at all. (Not that I doubted Sanders.)

 

[Sanders McNew]

I have to admit I Googled Marketa Belonoha - no resemblance at all. (Not that I doubted Sanders.)

Melanie and I did the same thing last night.
She shielded my eyes from the screen and
said, "Well, her hair is a bit like mine."

 

[Finder]

This is what I was talking about but for my personal observation of how the naked body perception has changed since the 1970's, which is confirmed by many sociology specialists. In a few words, nudity is now often assimiled to trash and shocking material, which RML's post confirmed, because he went to speak of trash nudy papers to say that photographers still can publish nude pictures. I was speaking of high-level nudes photographers : Bill Brandt, Art Kane, Jean-Loup Sieff, Helmut Newton, Wyn Bullock, etc - certainly not of the trash stolen paparazzi pictures of naked show-biz people he mentioned.

Had photo forums existed 30 years ago, Sanders would NOT have had to post a warning disclaimer about his wife's photograph, because nobody at that time could have got shocked by it ; anybody would have seen nothing but beauty and grace in this picture.

Want a proof of what I say, Raid ? Let's go. Famous humanist photographer Willy Ronis, now 97 years old, was recently sued in court by a stranger woman he had photographed in... 1947. She was pushed-up by lawyers just to make money.

Times have changed a lot and this has many consequences for photography - I mean, photography which intends to be a testimony of contemporary history (e.g., street photography) or vanishing beauty (such as beautiful young women nudity) and doesn't limit itself to testing gear to death just for the MTF fun.

I wish we could see many photographs of Sander's ones level here at RFF.

Back in the eighties, Sally Mann was in trouble with the police because the nude shoots of her children were being classed as child pornography. The 70s were not that open either. I would say nudity is much more visible now; the problem is it is cruder.

 

[ChrisN]

Melanie and I did the same thing last night.
She shielded my eyes from the screen and
said, "Well, her hair is a bit like mine."

Ha! Now that made me laugh!

Keep up the good work, both of you!

Cheers!

 

[Sanders McNew]

Interesting thing happened today...
I showed my wife the Nude that FrankS (good photographer or good subject?) posted and she said "That's gross..."
Then I decided to show her the shot in this thread...She liked it...

Anyone??? Why??? I have my thoughts...

Sam, I did not reply at first to this because I hadn't seen
Frank's post. Were you referring to this one?

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45305

They are very different photographs. The only common
denominator is a naked woman in the frame. To frame
the question as you have elevates the fact of the subject's
nudity to the defining element of each image.

I shoot a lot of nude work with my Rolleiflex and view camera.
(Almost never with the Leica.) Nude portraits. I chose the
subject in part to explore this question of how nudity affects
the way the viewer encounters the individual in the image.
Do you see the person, or the nakedness?

You can see some samples from that series at

www.mcnew.net/portraits

It would be interesting to hear your wife's reaction to the
photographs posted at that site.

 

[Farace]

You can see some samples from that series at

www.mcnew.net/portraits

What an interesting series of portraits! It's given me something to ponder, because while many nude photos, the ones that seem more prurient to me, seem like bodies posed for the photographer's or viewers' pleasure, or worse, an uninvited invasion of privacy, with your photos it's evident that the subjects are willfully involved in the portrait process, intentionally inviting the viewer to see more of their own personality and self image. It's less about what the photographer wants to see, and more about what the subject wants to reveal of themselves. What primarily comes across is not the nudity, but the person.

-----

Something said earlier in this thread has given me much thought, too, the idea that certain decades have been more or less prudish. It seems to me that nudity in art has always caused issues for some folks. If I'm not mistaken, Michelangelo's David (a piece that I feel might be the single most beautiful artwork ever created) caused an uproar when it was unveiled, and figures in his frescos were ordered veiled by later popes. I think it was Da Vinci that drew criticism for depicting the Christ child actually nursing at Mary's breast. Almost a hundred years ago, Marcel Duchamp caused an uproar with his Nude Descending a Staircase, more for the title than for the painting itself! Sculptures in the US Capitol rotunda were ordered cloaked in the recent past. Look what happened with Mapplethorpe's photos. In the end, time will shake out the wheat from the chaff, and the art will shine.