spousal support for nude photography

[jan normandale]

Frank you sure start a lot of threads about nude women.... what's up with that? : D

 

[KoNickon]

While I enjoy nude photography as much as anyone, I question whether it's for anything other than prurient purposes. People always talk about "the beauty of the human form, blah blah blah," but I don't buy it. If that were the case, there'd be equal amounts of male and female nude studies, and I suspect it's overwhelmingly females. I also suspect the photographers doing nude photography are overwhelmingly heterosexual males. So I suspect any self-respecting spouse/SO would wonder why the photographer partner wants to do nude photography. Maybe I don't have enough of a pure artistic outlook.

 

[gregg]

I had the opportunity to do a workshop at the Dayton Art Institute with Kim Weston (Edward's grandson) about 2 years ago. Saturday was darkroom and LF portrait technique. The Sunday session was dedicated to nudes in the studio - both men and women. I shot 8x10 and the Leica. We didn't have the "hottest" models that day but my wife was great with it. She later took figure drawing courses at DAI and some of the same models (nude again) were used - no problem.

 

[jlw]

I've always loved this peculiar terminology of "the nude," as if there were only one of them...

Photographer A: I'm interested in photographing the nude.
Photographer B: You can't, I've got him reserved for this weekend.

Another potentially interesting variable would be the kind of model involved. I don't know how many of you were college art majors/minors, but I was, and... well, have you ever seen the kinds of models usually used in life drawing classes? The idea generally is that they want models who display interesting shape and/or volume for drawing; these models are drastically different from what photographers typically think of as "nude models", i.e. Playboy. (I wasn't in it, but a former classmate swears that his life drawing class one day got a 70-year-old man with an artificial leg!)

 

[pesphoto]

This isnt really my genre, but maybe we could set up a gallery for those inspired by Frank's thread here today.

 

[jlw]

While I enjoy nude photography as much as anyone, I question whether it's for anything other than prurient purposes.

I don't like to say it, but I suspect this guess is correct a high percentage of the time. (Of course, if you're deliberately setting out to do erotic photography, you WANT it to be somewhat on the prurient side -- otherwise, what's the point?)

Or perhaps it's just a question of "mediation" -- i.e., perceptions and expectations of the idea of "nude photography" are so contaminated by pre-existing culture that it's hard to avoid doing anything clichéd. Female photographers seem more resistant to males when it comes to photographing nudes, perhaps because they aren't the "target market" for most of the exploitive nude photography done in the past. Louise Dahl-Wolfe's female nudes, for example, are purely beautiful and formal; but then, she was a fashion photographer, and presumably was used to looking at the models simply in terms of shape and texture.

I got an interesting in-your-face introduction to this several years ago when I was visiting a (female) photographer friend in Kansas City, and we went to a gallery to see a group showing of photographs of nudes. As I walked around the exhibit, I started noticing what seemed to be a pattern. I didn't want to tip off my friend to my suspicions, but gradually edged up to the topic and she confirmed she had been suspecting the same thing: Pretty much all the work in the show that had been done by male photographers was crap; the only photos that exhibited original or interesting thinking had been done by women.

I can think of a few exceptions (Harry Callahan's poignant photos of his wife, Eleanor, being one, and some of the work in the galleries here being another) but not a lot. It's kind of made me lose what little interest I ever had in photographing nudes -- it seems to be very hard to do good work in this field if you're encumbered by a Y chromosome, and I don't want to look like an idiot!

 

[FrankS]

Hi Jan, I just post about what's on my mind to a group of people (RFF) that are more likely to relate to what I'm thinking than my "regular" friends.

 

[jody]

Mine says I can but haven't found a model yet.

 

[Nachkebia]

She would have no problem because she would also take pictures 😀

 

[steve garza]

I'd be happy to photograph anyone's wife in the nude!!

 

[Nachkebia]

How about everyone`s wifes Steve? 😀

 

[Goodyear]

I just put the (hypothetical) question to my wife:

"Well... it would depend how attractive she was."

Heh.

 

[Scarpia]

My wife would be fine with it as long as the model was male, straight, overweight and balding a little.

Sorry, Clint but I have no plans to go to Boston.😀
Kurt M.

 

[rpsawin]

This is just for the married guys/gals or those in a monogamous relationship of at least 3 years:

You say to your significant other: Honey I'm interested in doing some photography of the nude.

How would that go over in your house?

She said fine but if I get caught taking pictures nude I have to post my own bail...

Bob

 

[Kyle]

My girlfriend would have no problem with it. In fact, she'd volunteer herself. There might be one or two people that we know that she would have a problem with me photographing nude, but other than that, no problem.

I have no interest in actually doing so, though.

 

[rogue_designer]

No problem in my household - partly because I insist that the model bring a friend (but NOT their SO).

Partly because she's made it clear that my life would be forfeit if I did anything untoward.

 

[Silva Lining]

Hmm, I don't think my wife would advocate the idea, but I imagine she would be supportive but a little uncomfortable. Which is why I wouldn't suggest it. I'd rather photographer her anyway!

 

[John Camp]

A few random thoughts:

I've taken life drawing classes off and on for years, and my wife has never had a problem with it (she was an art major in college and also took life classes.) The interest in the model's nudity goes away quickly, even if she is attractive; you sort of get caught up in trying to get the relative sizes right, and it also because it's quickly clear that this is not a "relationship." It's learning a craft.

I've never asked my wife about nude photogaphy, because I'm not interested in it. I find 99.99 percent of it trite and boring. Actually, when I think about what that number means, 99.99 percent is not high enough. And I'm pretty sure that I couldn't do it any better. If I asked my wife, I suspect she might ask "Why would you want to do that?" She wouldn't have any intrinsic objection, she just wouldn't understand what I was trying to do.

I've looked at Photosig a few times, and, what can you say? Thousands of nudes at any one time, tens or maybe hundreds of thousands over a period of a couple of years. Almost any nude photograph you might be tempted to take is already there; and imitations of everybody. Maybe after a certain point in life (or perhaps I should say, after a certain number of relationships) nudity per se is no longer particularly interesting. (I also once wrote a book on Plastic Surgery, and during the course of the research, saw a few hundred naked people of all different shapes and sizes at very short range. That has an effect, too, I suppose.)

You'll also notice that when people talk about "great" nude photography, most of it was done 50-70 years ago. I mean, how many people have now shot nudes on a sand dune, and how many did we really need after Ed Weston?

I think most people now shoot nudes because they're mostly interested in their own reaction to shooting a naked person; we're not really talking about an interest in how the shadows fall.

A friend of mine has posed nude for "artistic" photogaphers who I think are pretty sincere about the work -- and when I looked at the shots, I thought, well, so what?

The great difference between photogaphing the nude and drawing the nude is that with photography, the capture of the image is ultimately mechanical. In drawing, of course, it's anything but mechanical. Human beings are exquisitely attuned to faces and bodies; if you draw one thing poorly, everybody can see it (John Singer Sargent once defined a portrait as "a picture in which there is something not quite right about the mouth.") So drawing the human face or figure is the ultimate test of skill; taking a life class is not only a learning experience, it's a testing experience. photographing the nude is...I don't know what it is.

JC

 

[FrankS]

Thank you all for your considered responses so far!

 

[back alley]

i have not read all the responses to this thread but i did note who started it.
i must apologize...frank has been hounding me ever since i mentioned that i had done a series of nude self portraits...i had made a committment to keep them personal and private but he seems intent on getting one.
so frank, i have put a framed 16x20 print of my favourite pose in the mail for you.
so please, stop pestering the board.

joe