Secret Lives

Do semi-professional photographers and part-time models have secret lives ?
Do we keep the type of photography we do a secret from the everyday folks we mix with at work, and do we keep our everyday personas secret from the photographic community on the blogs and MM ? Which persona is the “real self”, the everyday work self, or the photographer/art-nude model self ?
Are they both different masks we try on, or are they two parts of the same whole, and neither is complete without the other ?

From what I can see, authors of art-nude blogs mostly don’t give away what their day jobs are. Apart from the full-time professional photographers, the vast majority in our art-nude bloggie community have other day-jobs. Many appear to be highly educated (usually to degree level or beyond) and often seem to have their own company, or work in the computer or technical service industries (both of which we do).
Some photographers are living secret lives, often in the real world where sometimes you can’t publicise what you do photographically because art-nudes are not socially acceptable. But on a blog, a photographer (or model) can express something of his or her true nature and inner emotion, both via the blog writing and the exploration of beauty through the photographs themselves. Such is the nature of the Blog.

So which is the real self ? You have your blog persona, where you can be whomsoever you want to be, and you have the real world where you can hide your secret self until later, where you can escape to the imaginary world of the secret blog, and explore your alternative persona.

Makes bloggers sound creepy doesn’t it ? But secrets are rife in amateur and semi-pro photographers. One of our first models (who was a professional art-nude model who had been doing this for years) told us that this was the first shoot she had ever done where the wife knew what the photographer husband was doing. No wonder she went as white as a sheet when I walked in during a shoot, bearing tea and pizza. Apparently she thought Rich was doing this in secret, and thought I was about to assault her with the pizza cutter !
This secrecy from your spouse is apparently extremely common. Great relationships these photographers must have, if they can’t even tell their partners.

I applaud the honesty of photographers and models who tell the whole world what they do, no matter where they work, and despite potential objections of their partners.
But to a large extent, I’m guilty of the same type of secrecy. I do tell my friends what we do, but tend to get nebulous if asked by my son’s teachers at school.
I wouldn’t let my mother-in-law read this blog, although I believe my father-in-law reads it (they’re divorced, so no risk of her looking over his shoulder). Also I’d be kicked out of my professional accountancy organisation if they knew my “alter ego”, and I’m not about to give up those 10 years of sweat and blood which it took to get the qualification in the first place.

Richard has also had his share of secrecy. I used to call him a schizophrenic photographer. He used to shoot one set of normal everyday images (landscapes, wildlife, dragonflies, caterpillars etc) for taking to the local camera club evenings, and then shoot art-nude models “on the quiet”. Eventually the strain and hypocrisy of the double photography became too much, and the passion for art-nude photography took over, and pushed out the meaningless, art-less images that he took just to be accepted by the local camera club, who are lovely people, but very morally righteous, if you know what I mean.
The strain of multiple personalities became too much and he eventually “came out” in what became “The Grand Camera Club Inquisition”. I’ll leave that story for him. Suffice to say, he’s been forbidden from showing his work there. Still at least that persona bit the dust. He’s only ever been any good at being honest and true to himself. We are both rebels and loners by nature. Traits of the entire art-nude community, methinks.
We all keep secrets. We all wear different masks. I’m not sure which label fits me any more. I am an accountant and financial director by day, and art-nude model and muse by night.
All are parts of the greater “whole”, but I have to show these personalities at different times. You all do this, to some extent.
But you run the danger of losing your “real self” in the process :

I caught him photographing caterpillars in the garden yesterday.