The New Erotic Photography By Taschen

I am going to start this very long post with an apology.
I am very sorry for my horribly biased view, and I’m truly sorry for all the photographers who are offended by this post.
I am now going to commit a cardinal sin.
I am going to slate the super-cool Taschen book “The New Erotic Photography”.

What qualifications do I have for making this judgement ? I am not a photographer after all. I am merely a lowly model, plus an old and not-very-good-one at that.
But as Dian Hanson said in her introduction to the book, “I’ve seen a lot of pictures of naked women”, many thousands in fact, so that makes me as qualified as the next person to judge.

I bought “The New Erotic Photography” as a surprise for Rich’s and my wedding anniversary. We spent the morning of our wedding anniversary not having wild orgasmic sex (it has been 19 years of marriage and we have three kids), but arguing wildly about the contents of this book.

Because all of our nude-photographic bloggie friends were raving about this book, we both had very high expectations. Absolutely everyone we have talked to or read about has described the book with pride and passion.

And I would formally like to congratulate all the photographers I “know” (mainly via blogs or forums as they are all in the States) who are in this book. James Graham, BT Charles, Chip Willis, being the most well-known. Congrats you guys. Glad to see you published. But you deserved better, honestly. Like, for example, your own Taschen books.

Taschen usually produce some really good photography books (we have several), so what went wrong ?

Taschen is a German company which caters primarily for the American market. Thus “The New Erotic Photography” appears to primarily feature US based nude photographers, with a smattering of European photographers thrown in for the sake of political correctness. Yes there are a few others from other countries, but they are in the minority.

The writing is excellent. I was impressed. The section about each photographer is fascinating and eloquently written: what inspires the photographer, what drives him (or her) to take these images, why he considers his photography erotic, what essentially makes him tick. Really REALLY good stuff.

But the photographs themselves ? Ah. Don’t get me started. The introduction was followed by the predictible picture of a nude Kate Moss. Oh dear. Downhill from here then.
I am being flippant, but this is a polite way of saying that even a non-photographer like me can see that many of the photographs in the book were badly lit, badly framed, badly posed, badly executed. Just plain BAD.

The point of view of a photographer? Rich’s view was “Uninspiring and ordinary. Not all of it, but much of it”.

The book tries to be cool and trendy by featuring a US based opinion of what is erotic. Now I appreciate everyone’s view of what is erotic is different, and I realise that this book wouldn’t feature fine-art-nude photographs on the whole, because these are figure studies - leaving aside for a moment the argument that many folks find fine-art nudes erotic, although they did feature the obligatory Peter Hegre (*sighs with despair*)

But the book is a disjointed collection of “bedroom glamour”. Women rolling around in bed, feeling themselves up, sometimes with guys, sometimes with other objects. I note that there were, of course, the obligatory erotic fish photographs.(page 134-137, featuring a shark, lobster and fish by Jean van Cleemput). Nicely done, but I am obviously missing the whole “Fish thing” (see two posts ago). Will someone please explain to me what makes a picture of a naked woman with a fish sexually attractive?

And where were the pictures of men ? Yes there were pictures of men and women “interacting”, but what about men by themselves? Men are erotic too you know. What about the female readers?

Too much featuring of middle-of-the-road socially acceptable-view of what is erotic. No pushing of the boundaries of the definition of eroticism. This book was designed to sell very soft arty, coffee-table almost-porn to your average male GWC who is aspiring to be a photographer, whilst being a titilating bedroom-read for the wife without upsetting her too much. It encourages the newbie to go shoot some nudes and call himself a photographer.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing. Books should inspire.

There is a lot of raw talent in the book, but this book is defined by its notable absences. There are a lot of really famous photographers in the book like, for example, Eric Kroll, Didier Carre, Bob Carlos Clarke, Steve Diet Goedde, Craig Morey, Markus Richter, Terry Richardson and so forth (and not their best work either, I might add), So don’t tell me this book is only about new emerging talent.

But where are the others ? Where are the other really talented erotic photographers like D. Brian Nelson, Moten, Johnny Flamethrower, Martini (and many others) ? What the hell were Taschen THINKING? You just can’t feature a book about American erotic photography, and NOT feature at least one of these guys. Are Taschen plain negligent in their research capabilities, or are they just being politically correct and pandering to the masses ?

James, BT and Chip are an oasis in a desert of ordinariness. I heaved a sigh of relief when I made it to Chip’s section at the end. It was good to end on some stunning photography. Taschen saved the best for last.

My view ?

If you want to see the best in American Nude photography, look at any of the links on the right hand side of this blog. These do show the very best “New Erotic Photography”



Picture of Lynx by Richard J. Bang, newbie photographer, shortly to be blacklisted by Taschen (sorry about that Rich!)