Telling the Friends
How do you tell your friends that you do art-nude photography ?
Especially when one of your friends is a really devout Christian, would never dream of taking her clothes off, EVER, and certainly would never expose her flesh to the world. And who (But I might be wrong here) has given every indication that nude photographs are porn, no matter how tastefully they appear.
The theory goes that if you tell your friends that you do something controversial, they should accept you for who you are.
But this is the Norfolk “yummy mummy circuit”. Large country houses. Ladies who lunch, ladies who send their kids to posh schools, ladies who sip Pimms and nibble on cucumber sandwiches, whilst wearing floaty flowery dresses, and whose husbands compare the latest 12 bore, and discuss shooting rodents. I kid you not. Places like this really do exist in rural UK.
(Note I’m only like this strictly on required social occasions and after many glasses of chardonnay to bolster acting abilities. I do it for my kids, I tell you)
Anyway, sorry about that. I got drawn into a rant about the yummy mummies (this won’t be my last rant on the subject, so get used to it).
Where was I ? Oh yes, a good friend will not judge you (or if they do, they won’t show it). They simply accept that this is what you do…..
So how did it go ? Well I broke her in gently…”Well, you know Richard is learning photography now ? Well, he is studying for his LRPS and branching out into model portfolios……Here is an example of the last 3 shoots he did” And I explained in detail the reasons we thought it was art, that Richard was not a GWC, that he’s not remotely interested in drooling over models, that’s it’s all about creating beauty and art, and that he just loves to make women look beautiful….…etc etc etc
To give her credit, she was very courageous. She didn’t say much, but she did ask to see the studio God knows what she thought she’d find up there, bondage stirrups and furry handcuffs, perhaps. (No, no, just lights and a grey backdrop. Don’t get your hopes up). She’s still talking to me (well, emailing me, but it’s a start). So far, the signs are good, and I’m being hopeful. I’d hate to lose her as a friend.
Of course, her husband now thinks that we photograph “girls privates” for a living, and that the book I loaned her about cooking last week, was actually a lesbian love-fest novel. Frankly, I detect that he’s not too keen !
And we won’t be invited to any more dinner parties. Not that I’ve been to many anyway, since our last one of two years ago (a classy toga party) where Richard had too much wine, spent all night telling the yummy mummies’ partners just what he thought of their parenting skills and their 12 bores, and then finished off by ……but no, we won’t go there. All in all, we don’t have a good record of fitting into the posh Norfolk circuit, do we ?
The opposite end of the forum is friend number 2, who is a politically correct artist, musician and psychologist, my oldest friend for 25 years, a wonderful guy who lives with a beautiful and talented girl at the opposite end of the country. I had no qualms about telling him everything, showing him my blog, photos of me, absolutely everything. Well, you don’t hide anything from your best friend, do you ? If anyone is cool with this, he would be.
You know what’s coming next huh ? Well, he SEEMS O.K about the whole thing….and they are being frightfully polite. My blog apparently was “touching” (whatever that means), and he admires me for “coming out” (maybe he’s been reading the lesbian love-fest novel too) but let’s just say that they were going to come up and visit for a weekend, and yet they are evading the “let’s make a date for you to visit ?” question.
Why does everyone think this is about sex and porn ??? For God’s sake, doesn’t anyone get it ? It’s ART folks, ART.
Especially when one of your friends is a really devout Christian, would never dream of taking her clothes off, EVER, and certainly would never expose her flesh to the world. And who (But I might be wrong here) has given every indication that nude photographs are porn, no matter how tastefully they appear.
The theory goes that if you tell your friends that you do something controversial, they should accept you for who you are.
But this is the Norfolk “yummy mummy circuit”. Large country houses. Ladies who lunch, ladies who send their kids to posh schools, ladies who sip Pimms and nibble on cucumber sandwiches, whilst wearing floaty flowery dresses, and whose husbands compare the latest 12 bore, and discuss shooting rodents. I kid you not. Places like this really do exist in rural UK.
(Note I’m only like this strictly on required social occasions and after many glasses of chardonnay to bolster acting abilities. I do it for my kids, I tell you)
Anyway, sorry about that. I got drawn into a rant about the yummy mummies (this won’t be my last rant on the subject, so get used to it).
Where was I ? Oh yes, a good friend will not judge you (or if they do, they won’t show it). They simply accept that this is what you do…..
So how did it go ? Well I broke her in gently…”Well, you know Richard is learning photography now ? Well, he is studying for his LRPS and branching out into model portfolios……Here is an example of the last 3 shoots he did” And I explained in detail the reasons we thought it was art, that Richard was not a GWC, that he’s not remotely interested in drooling over models, that’s it’s all about creating beauty and art, and that he just loves to make women look beautiful….…etc etc etc
To give her credit, she was very courageous. She didn’t say much, but she did ask to see the studio God knows what she thought she’d find up there, bondage stirrups and furry handcuffs, perhaps. (No, no, just lights and a grey backdrop. Don’t get your hopes up). She’s still talking to me (well, emailing me, but it’s a start). So far, the signs are good, and I’m being hopeful. I’d hate to lose her as a friend.
Of course, her husband now thinks that we photograph “girls privates” for a living, and that the book I loaned her about cooking last week, was actually a lesbian love-fest novel. Frankly, I detect that he’s not too keen !
And we won’t be invited to any more dinner parties. Not that I’ve been to many anyway, since our last one of two years ago (a classy toga party) where Richard had too much wine, spent all night telling the yummy mummies’ partners just what he thought of their parenting skills and their 12 bores, and then finished off by ……but no, we won’t go there. All in all, we don’t have a good record of fitting into the posh Norfolk circuit, do we ?
The opposite end of the forum is friend number 2, who is a politically correct artist, musician and psychologist, my oldest friend for 25 years, a wonderful guy who lives with a beautiful and talented girl at the opposite end of the country. I had no qualms about telling him everything, showing him my blog, photos of me, absolutely everything. Well, you don’t hide anything from your best friend, do you ? If anyone is cool with this, he would be.
You know what’s coming next huh ? Well, he SEEMS O.K about the whole thing….and they are being frightfully polite. My blog apparently was “touching” (whatever that means), and he admires me for “coming out” (maybe he’s been reading the lesbian love-fest novel too) but let’s just say that they were going to come up and visit for a weekend, and yet they are evading the “let’s make a date for you to visit ?” question.
Why does everyone think this is about sex and porn ??? For God’s sake, doesn’t anyone get it ? It’s ART folks, ART.
posted by Lin at 3:05 PM
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