Professional ethics
As a former lawyer, and during my training as an accountant, I have had extensive lessons in professional ethics. I’m not just talking about the usual ethical dilemma of “thou shalt not cook the books”, or “if your client is laundering money, you have a professional and moral duty to report him”. I’m also referring to lessons in personal ethics. This can be summarised in one statement:
Thou shalt not have personal relations with either your clients or your co-workers.
In all the firms and organisations I have worked for, breaching this rule led to immediate dismissal, and probable expulsion from the Law Society and my professional Chartered Accountancy association.
Quite simply, breaching this ethical duty meant risking your career and all those years you had worked to become qualified.
Of course, this very important moral lesson had no effect whatsoever.
I have yet to meet a lawyer or accountant with impeccable personal morals. Those long hours at evening ethics seminars positively encouraged lawyers to let their hair down afterwards by nipping down the pub together to get sozzled, followed by avid humping in the car or hotel afterwards, and then nipping home to the wife.
And as for accountants? Well, you don’t seriously expect to spend 15 hour days locked up on an audit in the middle of nowhere, without er…going down the pub to get sozzled, followed by ……yes, yes, you have definitely heard this before. Auditing is the most boring career known to man. You have to intersperse it with sex, otherwise you just go plain crazy.
Nude photographers do not have the benefit of all that extensive professional training in ethics. And yet they generally have much higher moral standards.
When a model takes her clothes off to be photographed by a completely strange guy, at some level she is both physically and emotionally vulnerable, no matter how strong she appears on the surface. When a nude model takes direction from the photographer, she is effectively loaning him her power for a while. So the photographer has to have impeccable ethics.
A model should have implicit trust in the photographer’s behaviour. She has to feel safe. If the photographer gets a reputation for behaving inappropriately, his references will not check out, and he won’t remain a nude photographer for very long because his name will be mud.
The vast majority of photographers rarely touch their models. Physical contact is a big taboo, unless the photographer knows the model very well and has worked with her regularly (in which case the two are actually friends rather than professional strangers, and develop their own new mutual boundaries).
A photographer must always give a model her privacy, and not photograph her when she is getting changed without her permission, although many photographers still do this, unfortunately.
Photographers must never leer at a model (not that they ever do, in my experience, because they’re too obsessed with getting the lighting and pose perfect). They must always treat the model with the utmost courtesy and respect.
Above all, photographers must be very good at making coffee.
So besides the actual difficulty of concentrating on the lighting and posing, the photographer also has to maintain a delicate emotional balance. I am talking about the balance between keeping an emotional distance, whilst making the model feel soothed, relaxed, attractive and ensuring that she is enjoying the shoot.
Phew! Who’d want to be a photographer when you have this much to think about? I mean, yep, there’s the fact that you have a gorgeous naked chick in front of you, but frankly the poor photographer barely notices because he’s too busy concentrating on all of this. Richard is usually exhausted after a shoot, and I can understand why. And they say men can’t multitask!
Nude photographers often get a reputation as loners, but this simply isn’t true. In fact, they are really very adept at social skills. How else can they get a nervous, stark-naked woman to open up emotionally for the camera? Only when the model is relaxed and happy can the photographer stand a chance of shooting beautiful and moving art.
Professional ethics?
Yep, trust your photographer. He has the highest possible moral standards.
Which is more than can be said of your accountant.
Roswell Ivory, whom I can thoroughly recommend as a fantastic model, if you ever happen to be in this corner of the world.
Thou shalt not have personal relations with either your clients or your co-workers.
In all the firms and organisations I have worked for, breaching this rule led to immediate dismissal, and probable expulsion from the Law Society and my professional Chartered Accountancy association.
Quite simply, breaching this ethical duty meant risking your career and all those years you had worked to become qualified.
Of course, this very important moral lesson had no effect whatsoever.
I have yet to meet a lawyer or accountant with impeccable personal morals. Those long hours at evening ethics seminars positively encouraged lawyers to let their hair down afterwards by nipping down the pub together to get sozzled, followed by avid humping in the car or hotel afterwards, and then nipping home to the wife.
And as for accountants? Well, you don’t seriously expect to spend 15 hour days locked up on an audit in the middle of nowhere, without er…going down the pub to get sozzled, followed by ……yes, yes, you have definitely heard this before. Auditing is the most boring career known to man. You have to intersperse it with sex, otherwise you just go plain crazy.
Nude photographers do not have the benefit of all that extensive professional training in ethics. And yet they generally have much higher moral standards.
When a model takes her clothes off to be photographed by a completely strange guy, at some level she is both physically and emotionally vulnerable, no matter how strong she appears on the surface. When a nude model takes direction from the photographer, she is effectively loaning him her power for a while. So the photographer has to have impeccable ethics.
A model should have implicit trust in the photographer’s behaviour. She has to feel safe. If the photographer gets a reputation for behaving inappropriately, his references will not check out, and he won’t remain a nude photographer for very long because his name will be mud.
The vast majority of photographers rarely touch their models. Physical contact is a big taboo, unless the photographer knows the model very well and has worked with her regularly (in which case the two are actually friends rather than professional strangers, and develop their own new mutual boundaries).
A photographer must always give a model her privacy, and not photograph her when she is getting changed without her permission, although many photographers still do this, unfortunately.
Photographers must never leer at a model (not that they ever do, in my experience, because they’re too obsessed with getting the lighting and pose perfect). They must always treat the model with the utmost courtesy and respect.
Above all, photographers must be very good at making coffee.
So besides the actual difficulty of concentrating on the lighting and posing, the photographer also has to maintain a delicate emotional balance. I am talking about the balance between keeping an emotional distance, whilst making the model feel soothed, relaxed, attractive and ensuring that she is enjoying the shoot.
Phew! Who’d want to be a photographer when you have this much to think about? I mean, yep, there’s the fact that you have a gorgeous naked chick in front of you, but frankly the poor photographer barely notices because he’s too busy concentrating on all of this. Richard is usually exhausted after a shoot, and I can understand why. And they say men can’t multitask!
Nude photographers often get a reputation as loners, but this simply isn’t true. In fact, they are really very adept at social skills. How else can they get a nervous, stark-naked woman to open up emotionally for the camera? Only when the model is relaxed and happy can the photographer stand a chance of shooting beautiful and moving art.
Professional ethics?
Yep, trust your photographer. He has the highest possible moral standards.
Which is more than can be said of your accountant.
Roswell Ivory, whom I can thoroughly recommend as a fantastic model, if you ever happen to be in this corner of the world.
posted by Lin at 8:42 PM
3 Comments:
No, there aren't any rules. There are no professional ethics having to do with what is essentially a hobby. There are only expectations of civilized behavior, but those are the same as all interactions with other human beings. Turning that into some "professional code" is overdoing it just a bit.
Touching models. I don't hesitate to touch models if it's necessary to the picture. I also know enough to avoid touching those models who would feel it's an intrusion. But I avoid working with those models as much as possible.
Richard or Lin - must be Richard as Lin signs her posts - you're trying too hard to make up a protocol where there isn't one and any protocol would limit the potential of a shoot. Limits are to be avoided, rather than embraced. Rules restrict, they do not inspire.
Forget the rules and behave as a decent human being. Rules can't do that; only who you are can do that.
-Don
Not sure why you couldn't see my sig, but the post is mine.
I appeciate touching is dependent on the style of photography you are doing. It's difficult to tie someone up without touching them! On the other hand, there's a big difference between touching and "touching", if you see what I mean. One is professional, and the other is not.
IMO, Rules and professionalism are necessary when you are dealing with models in general, but again, these are dependent on the style of photography you are doing, and the individual model's personal comfort zone.
Maybe UK models are different, but all the ones I have met would welcome a photographer with a more ethical attitude, as it would make them feel more comfortable. I don't see why a professional and ethical attitude would limit the art.
Don,
The post was by Lin.
I think its about appropriatness. On MM you will get told to never touch a model, and for most photography thats true, there is no need to do so.
You however, tie models to the bed and spank them (lucky you) so its difficult to see how you could do that without touching.
However, you have said that you only do it as necessary for the image and thus you are following the same guidlines within the scope of what you do.
MM has lots of stories of GWC's touching models inappropriatly and this always causes an outcry as its seen by almost everyone as breaking the 'rules'.
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