The Golden Fluffies 2007

The Fluffytek Photographic Nude Blog Awards 2007

(For RSS feeds, please don't view this in your reader. Open it in a separate window, otherwise you won't see the award)

Welcome readers to our favourite day of the year: The Golden Fluffies 2007 Awards, given to the finest photographic nude bloggers on the planet. (Note: this doesn’t mean the bloggers are nude – we have no clue about this – just that the photographs are of nudes.)

Well, things back here at Fluffytek HQ have been a tad frantic over the last few days. In fact Rich and I have been arguing all Christmas week, and we blame you lot. With such a wealth of amazing talent out there, it is nigh impossible to stay objective about the judging process. Indeed, we gave spent days and days re-reading all your blogs and sweating over stunning pictures of naked boobies. Gee, it’s a hard life but someone’s gotta do it.

The Golden Fluffies are our tribute to you, the artists, who give up so much time to run your fantastic blogs, who show your passion for photographic art on a daily basis. It takes dedication, perseverance and downright bloody-mindedness to regularly maintain a blog several times a week, and that’s even before shooting the outstanding photography which goes with each post. The fact that you give up so much of your free time to this art form is pretty amazing to us.

Make no bones about it, blogging is difficult. All the artists featured here have won because their words matter as much as their photographic skill. Writing is an important medium too – it reflects you, the person, just as surely as your photographs do. You are all artists not only because you want to give pleasure, but because you "have to create”, because photography is in your soul.

Art is your life, and it shows. And that is why we are honouring you all here today.

The Golden Fluffies are for you.

All images are the copyright of the relevant artists and were posted on their blogs this year.

Award for best Overall Nude Blog

This is the main award for the Best Nude Blog including all styles of photographic nudes rather than just the classic fine-art nude style. We have argued about this for ages, but finally the one outshines the many.

Dave Rudin’s Figures of Grace. As well as doing wonders for foreign tourism, the Mr Darcy of the photographic world shoots amazing nudes. We particularly like the portrait styles. It’s in the eyes. All in the eyes. Plus his writing’s terrific too.

Sarah Ellis by Dave Rudin

Special kudos to our other favourite blogs, Dave Levingston’s Exposed for the Shadows (stunning outdoor nude and landscape photography), Gary M’s consistently top-notch Implications and Experience, BT Charles (who would have won several awards if only he hadn’t kept deleting his posts) and Mark Saintz’s inspiring Newcastle Art Nudes.

Award for Best Fine-Art Nude Blog

Magic Flute Fine Art Nudes by Stephen Haynes. With interesting cultural posts and gentle witty repartee, Stephen’s writing and distinguished fine-art studio photography have delighted us on a daily basis all year.

Rachel by Stephen Haynes

Best Model Blog

Of course it can only be The Iris Dassault Blog. Superior photography from world-class photographers, and outstanding writing from the leading laydeez of the photographic world.

Iris Dassault and Unbearable Lightness by Jim Young

Special mentions go to Lela Rae, and The Body, Heart and Mind of Orixx. Excellent writing on both, and check out Lela’s images in particular - wowee.

Best Glamour Blog

Jimmy D’s Pretty Girl Shooter. Simply the best glamour photography on the planet, and valuable photographic wisdom and dry (almost-English) humour from the Great Master himself. Read it. You will learn a lot about photography, or your money back.

Tera Patrick by Jimmy D

Special mention to the beautifully written Boudoir Photographer.

Best Photographic Style

For the second year running, Iksodas is the best out there. His art is moody, atmospheric, and always shows exclusive style and exquisite taste. You can instantly spot an Iksodas photograph out of hundreds of others. Oh and his writing is pretty cool as well.

Lane by Iksodas

Additional kudos for the magnificent Chip Willis, and the ravishing James Graham. All three of these chaps deserve anthologies in their own right, and could easily grace the pages of Vogue (well, the UK edition at least.)

Best Writer of the Year

There can only be one Hotel Room Nudes. Art, culture and nekkid chix. D Brian Nelson’s writing is wonderful, warm, honest and funny. The man has stories to tell, and photographs beautiful girls. Read this for your daily dose of wisdom. Our particular favourite post of the year can be read here.

Desiree by D Brian Nelson

Plus appreciative applause to Lela Rae’s new erotic fiction writing (there’s real talent there, methinks), and of course, to Feminism Without Clothes (kicks serious ass.)

Best Blog Image of the year

Both Rich and I had our socks blown off by this one. Wow.

Lela Rae and Reven, photography by Erica Spencer

Runner-up Best Blog image of the year

Please forgive our inclusion of this final image. For some reason, we feel it sums up 2007 perfectly.

Plain Jayne Jones by DVS

Lastly our profound thanks to all readers who have visited this humble blog and web site. Four million hits this year. We’ve no idea why you came, but we hope you found enjoyment.

Just remember Richard’s mantra: It ain’t art unless it’s got boobies!

The Commonality of the Digital Age

One of the most common criticisms of Model Mayhem is its reflection of the rapid growth in digital photography. Half a million members, and growing, and all thanks to the digital age. Millions of people can now buy a camera for under $100 and call themselves “photographer.” This is the new world of photography, a new freedom of expression. Anyone can do it now.

Long standing photographers who were trained before the digital age, the die-hard-dedicated film buffs, often argue that this is a bad thing. That there’s no talent any more, or if there is, it’s swallowed up in such a massive amount of dross, that it’s very difficult to find any new and exceptional photographic talent any more. They argue that it cheapens the art of photography, that the quality of the profession is gone.

To some extent, this is true. It is certainly a lot harder nowadays to make a decent living as a photographer. With major fashion magazines paying less and less for decent fashion spreads, with the ongoing death of photojournalism because the news web sites invite anyone to upload pictures from their mobiles, photography has become free, just another casualty of the insidious growth of the internet age where “free” is expected, taken for granted. Photography is now fast, instant, just another microwave ready-meal. There is no photographic learning process, no years of training, no growth of skill, no learning of exposure or lighting because the cheap automatic camera does it all for you. Where’s the real photography gone?

The sad thing is that this growth has resulted in many a photographer quitting the profession, or going bust. They still love photography with a burning passion, but they simply have been chased away by the digital age, by the growth of “free.”

There is still money to be made for the exceptional photographer, of course, but it is certainly much more difficult nowadays. Most “good-but-not-quite-Avedon” grade photographers, who used to make a perfectly decent living out of all sorts of photography (landscapes, glamour, art, portraits and so forth), have given up long ago and gone to find another day-job that will pay the mortgage. You only have to look in our local town and see how many photographers have gone bust in the last five years. It’s heartbreaking to see. A graveyard of broken dreams and broken livelihoods, because the public don’t use professional photographers any more. They have a cheap camera and a copy of Photoshop at home. What do they need a professional for? And anyone can call themselves a pro nowadays. It’s all too easy.



But there’s the flip side too.

Firstly there’s the feel-good factor.
O.K. so photography done by your average Joe Bloggs isn’t outstanding art. It’s instant rough-and-ready photography, but this is part of its charm. And I’m very sure it has given Joe immense satisfaction. And yes, he may consider himself an amateur photographer and list photography as one of his hobbies. But if it makes him happy, and gives him even a smidgen of appreciation of life behind the lens, who are we to look down on that, or belittle him for trying?

From time spent playing with a cheap instant camera, Joe might decide to study photography in depth a bit more, buy a few photography magazines. He might “get bitten by the photography bug,” scour the internet, study lighting and form, buy every book he can get his hands on, save up for a home studio, hire some nudes, and before you know it, a few years have passed and Joe is photographing private nude portfolios and earning a very tidy second income from it, thank-you very much.

In this way, digital photography has shifted the balance of power from the elite professionally trained photographers over to the common man, and now we are all in control of our own art.

Secondly, the internet presents billions of photographs to people who would otherwise not have seen them. It is an art gallery for the world. Millions of people’s lives are enriched by viewing fantastic images on an instant basis. And this virtual cyber-art gallery is free for all.

I’m going on my own experience here, so bear with me. Before a couple of years ago, I had a very limited understanding of fine-art. It meant nothing to me. I didn’t see it as art. And I want to emphasise that point. I did not really “SEE.”

Rich’s photography has changed the way I see. With just a couple of years of studying images from thousands of different photographers, I don’t just recognise and see a good photograph now, I feel it too. Photography has re-educated me. I see the world in a different light nowadays, and that’s all because of my new digital education. And if digital technology can teach that to the average non-artistic person like me, then surely this new commonality of art can change the world?

The growth of digital photography and the internet presents a new democracy of seeing. And I, for one, have been immeasurably enriched by this freely available art form.



Syd, looking as amazing as always.

Are they gone yet?

Well, thank God that’s over. Three days of ten-hours-straight cooking for The Grand Feast, up at 5 a.m. yesterday, Rich’s family all day, strung-out overexcited kids, my three year old having a complete meltdown because it all just got too much (I totally identify), plus Rich’s computer blew up Christmas morning (there was smoke, there was profuse cursing, there were no computer games.)

Today I am more exhausted today than I can ever remember. Plus I have put on at least 20 pounds and I am the size of a house. And did I mention that I feel terrible? Somebody please remind me to NEVER EVER do that again.

But it’s over. I need rest. I need low-fat protein and tons of vegetables. I need lots of cuddles. I need a steamy photographic shoot with a highly-trustworthy photographer (when he's finished disembowelling his computer) followed by humongous amounts of photoshopping to remove said-blubber.

But most importantly, I need to start writing again.

Can I go back to gritty, non-festive blogging now, or do I have to wait until the new year?



This is Kate, not me. I never looked this good. No, not even twenty years ago. Kate is a professional dancer. I never was, unless you count over-enthusiasic drunken bopping at a night-club four nights a week for most of my twenties. Accountancy wrecks your liver and your sense of rhythm. Don't let anyone ever convince you otherwise.

Four days to go

The last few days have been very upsetting in the modeling world. Let me state categorically that I have the sincerest admiration for the bravery and honesty of those models. They are amazing people.

I also have every sympathy with those I know who are coping with the loss of a loved one to cancer. And I really feel for those undergoing loneliness and depression, and to the rather-too-many people I know who are undergoing terminal relationship issues, again, this makes me sad, and you have my hope that things can be repaired.

But that’s all I want to say on the matter.

Why?

Because that’s all I can handle right now.

There has been a heck of a lot of negative around these past few weeks. I’ve been sucked into it as much as the next person.

But it’s four days until Christmas. So maybe you’ll forgive me for the following statements.

I don’t do death.
I don’t do depression.
I don’t do anger.
I don’t do misery.

I do, however, do Christmas.

As I type this, it is at the end of my working day, and we have finished work for Christmas.

So now it begins. I tried to make Christmas tasteful, I swear, and I had even planned out my colour-coordinated Christmas tree, but it seemed so dry and empty, somehow. So I just gave up and let the kids and Rich nuke the house.

Tonight the house is alive with shrieking and dancing kids. Fast and LOUD Christmas music. Twinkling Christmas lights. Roaring log fire. Mince pies. Really good sherry. The largest turkey you’ve ever seen (apologies to vegetarians – we would rather eat nut roast, I swear, but the in-laws are coming for Christmas and they are big carnivores.) Home-made Christmas cards. Bouncing Father Christmasses. Middle son planning the most complicated and exotic Christmas trifle I can imagine, involving $50 ingredients and three types of sherry (he wants to be a famous t.v. chef when he grows up). My three year old daughter obsessively wrapping presents (she’s been wrapping everything in sight for at least a month.) Snogging my husband under the mooseletoe (large dangling cuddly furry moose, who has looked down on plenty of kissing over the years.)

Yes it’s a naff, uncool, sugary sweet, tacky Christmas.
Guess what? I don’t care.
It’s been a really crappy year, dammit. We deserve a good one.

Why Do Nude Photographers Get More Action?

A recent British study has found that professional creative types (whether male or female) have on average twice as many sexual partners as their non-artist peers. It’s not just down to the fact that more artists see naked women, because this evidence applies across all types of art. So why are artists, and photographers in particular, so damn sexy?

Well of course artists are perceived as being passionate and dedicated to their craft, so women naturally assume they will be the same in the sack. Artists are deemed to have complicated and deep personalities. Accountants like me are not. Plus artists are often more open about their sexuality - their mind works in different ways, and they are more psychologically open to new ideas and are trained to explore new artistic directions, in and out of bed. Simply put, they are not as conservative as your average stockbroker.

Photographers (especially those who shoot nudes) are also experienced at handling women. They study women all the time. Lots of them. Usually naked. When a woman takes off her clothes, to some extent she removes her psychological barriers. Her psyche is laid bare. She must trust the photographer implicitly, and he must not abuse that trust, either at the time of the shoot, or in their dealings afterwards. Thus, it follows that the photographer has to be a nice guy.

Not all of them are nice, of course, and I have hard of photographers abusing that level of trust pretty badly. Let’s face it – some people are creeps. But hopefully those are the exceptions to the rule. Call me naïve, but on the whole, I do believe that the majority of photographers are worthy of long term trust, and most of them are kind and insightful people who treat their subjects with the greatest respect. They don’t openly judge a woman, they don’t judge sexuality, and they are open to all types of personalities who model for them. And because they are such good people, the best photographers are universally adored by many of their models.

There is also the very important point that the more experienced photographers know how women think. They have to. People skills, and putting a woman at ease is part of their job. How else can they get the best from their subject? A photographer has to understand the basic psychology of men and women, plus he has to be able to know how to use that knowledge to enhance his art. So it is fair to say that he has to know himself pretty well too. He must be self-confident, polite, non-judgmental, humorous, and if he is slightly flirtatious whilst maintaining an air of respect and complete control, then this will dramatically improve the emotional response of his model.

So you’ll notice that I have purely coincidentally described the qualities of most women’s ideal man. Study the wish list of most women, and you’ll find that they are looking for strong, self assured, even slightly arrogant men, who can make them laugh, make them feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, make them feel unique and wonderful. No wonder many women find nude photographers irresistible. Of course it helps if he is devastatingly good looking (has anyone actually seen that photo of James Graham in his super-fashionable designer black coat and NOT gone completely weak at the knees? I rest my case.)

However good looks are not essential. In fact I think they can actually count negatively towards the photographer’s sex appeal. Guys who are not what is perceived as “traditionally handsome” will always be more interesting to me, because they are often more modest, take themselves less seriously and are bit of an enigma. Mysteries are the ultimate hook to get the chicks interested, believe me. We wanna see what makes you chaps tick.

But ultimately your physical appearance and especially your age is irrelevant to your sex appeal. It is knowing yourself and being able to say who you are that is the real turn-on. Fortunately for photographers, most “ordinary” non-creative types don’t actually know themselves. Hence when women come across a powerful man - powerful because he has self knowledge and is in touch with his emotions - they are in awe of him, and they fall for him big time.

The power of knowing yourself is the ultimate aphrodisiac. It gives you power over your models, power over women and power over your art.

More enlightened photographers make better artists. And they’re better in bed too.

(Disclaimer: The author admits to twenty years of romantic bias regarding that last point.)



And to those photographers who say, “This is twaddle! I’m not getting any action,” my reply is a) maybe you prefer quality over quantity (which is wonderful of course, but it’s your choice so stop complaining) or b) Maybe you’re just shy, and you don’t realise how sexy you are?!

Off Topic: Why Free Healthcare is Not Better

Yanks usually hold the opinion that a free national healthcare system is better than their privately-funded one. In his movie “Sicko,” Michael Moore championed the UK as a beacon of light of how healthcare should be run. Today, I’m going to set the record straight.

Make no bones about it, the modern UK health system is crappy. Not universally, but often. Some local hospitals are actually run very well, the staff are caring and efficient, and I feel very fortunate to be treated there. Alas, they are not all like that. The “leading UK hospital” I went to in London last week was an example of our National Health Service at its worst.

The reason I went there was to be assessed for cancer treatment, since this hospital is one of only three places in the UK that has the correct machine to treat me, as my tumour is very rare (I told you before I was special.)

Glossing over the dreadful four hour trip on public transport to get there, we arrived exhausted in the most godforsaken place imaginable. The hospital is actually a conveyor belt to hell. The place was cold, filthy, with rows upon rows of nondescript chairs, no amenities, no children’s facilities (and this is trumped as the UK’s leading children’s hospital!), peeling paint, vomit-coloured walls, and nurses who spoke little English.

After insisting that I was in fact, male, with a different address and a different name and after much argument to persuade them otherwise, the nurses finally agreed to let me see "the specialist-otherwise-known-as-God” who would be considering my application for the high-density “nuke-it-and-see” treatment. We were crammed into a six foot square smelly cell and told to wait to see the great man himself. When he finally deigned to see us, he was extremely rude, concentrated largely on unrelated calls from his mobile, and generally treated me like animal excrement. After much grovelling on my part, he did however agree my case met the requisite criteria, and he is now going to “put my case before the hospital’s governing committee.” If this is granted, then we have to follow the lengthy process of trying to obtain funding for the £20K ($40K) treatment from my local Health Authority.

God said the local authority would initially refuse funding, so the matter would certainly go to appeal. He is somewhat optimistic about victory in the end, but the process will undoubtedly take a long time, and there is no guarantee of success. As my local health authority is currently £43m ($86m dollars) in debt, I’m not holding my breath here.

If our free National Healthcare system worked properly, patients shouldn’t have to spend sleepless nights wondering if they can get life-saving treatment. So to Michael Moore who thinks the UK health system is wonderful and the answer to everyone’s prayers, let me tell him that it is actually like any large public state system which is massively overloaded and badly run. Parts of it run splendidly, and parts of it are so mired in debt and bureaucracy that it sucks beyond belief. In other words, it suffers from the same flaws as any other large corporation.

Right now I’d give my right arm for private healthcare. Rather literally I’m afraid.

I know there are at least two bloggie readers out there whose bodies are more ravaged by this crappy disease than I am, and I am genuinely hoping that they have good private healthcare, and that they get treated with the respect and kindness that they need.

Because no-one deserves to be treated like a number.

"Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson




I don't feel Christmassy today, O.K? I do, however, feel like posting an image of the fabulous Lynx.

Two grumpy posts in a row? This is unsatisfactory bloggie service. Now I really can’t keep depressing everyone like this.
*makes mental note to keep to the happy stuff over the Yuletide season*

Naked chicks should be happy chicks.

Statistically speaking, yesterday did not happen

Have you ever wondered how sometimes people have a run of 'bad luck' where statistically unlikely things happen in a weird chain of events?

Let's look at yesterday. We had to go to London to see Lin's specialist about her treatment. As there is no parking in central London we chose to take the train. We arrived at the local station, parked the car, paid the ticket and got on the train. We travelled down, saw a very unpleasant specialist in an awful hospital whose staff were not able to pronounce our names correctly. We travelled all the way back, and that's when statistically the day stopped happening.

What are the chances that the ticket machine would take our money and spit out an invalid ticket to only us? Even though we displayed the printed ticket we were given, we found a parking fine waiting glued to the window. OK, so that's pretty unlikely, but shit happens right?

So we travelled home.

We found that the day-job software ordering system had screwed up and sent out an invalid licence code to a customer causing an almighty mess. Well, in ten years that's never happened before, so we can rate that as being really unlikely.

Then I decided to clear some outstanding day-job support issues and logged into our main support site and my anti-virus immediately went nuts as a Trojan downloader tried to install itself on the server. The forum software we use had an unlisted flaw and some B******* had hacked the site and installed a Trojan downloader. So it took several hours to clean up the mess.

What a day! But it wasn't over. Later last night I found out that something else had happened, a family tragedy, that I can’t blog about but which was very shocking and very unlikely to happen.

So what are the chances of those things happening all on one day? Pretty slim I would say.

Now it makes you wonder about the way of the universe when things like this occur. Until recently I had quite a strong faith, but due to the amount of statistically unlikely events occurring with such awesome regularity, this caused me to question my faith. The philosophy I had been taught just didn't seem to fit the circumstances.
Often when bad things happen, religious people say things like "It’s a test of faith" or "It’s so that you can learn and grow" or "Only God knows he greater picture and it will all be clear in the end."

Empty platitudes.

Testing ones faith has a place when there is actually some form of point to it. It’s like holding a biscuit up for a dog. The dog will do all sorts of tricks in the belief that at the end of it, he will get the treat. The more the dog believes he will get the treat, the more he will play. But eventually, he will tire and stop. You have tested his faith to the point where he no longer sees any point to it and gives up.

If the purpose of the life-test is so that you can learn and grow, then why keep pounding away? There is no sense in trying to break someone just for the heck of it. Pile on the crap, see how much someone can take. Watch them fall, see who lasts the longest. It’s like a Japanese game show where they torture the contestants until only one is left.

“Only God knows the greater picture” relies on there actually being one. If there are enough random events that serve no real purpose other than to make your life harder, it becomes difficult to believe in any higher purpose. For example, what higher purpose is served by a parking fine after having followed the rules? It's a random unlikely event that has no consequences to the rest of the universe, other than depleting my wallet. Most of the trying events in our lives, that are not self inflicted, fall into the “random crap with no outside effect” scenario.

So after looking at my faith, I gave it up. I decided that it was just random crap and that there was no point in trying to fathom it out, it was random and just life. Better to get on with it and not try to ask why.

But then yesterday happened, highly unlikely events occurring, some which border on the miraculous (but not in a good way.) This caused me to question my lack of faith.


And then I had an epiphany. There must be a God after all.

So how come there is a God?

Well some of these things were just too statistically unlikely to occur all at once without some other influence. That influence could therefore be described as God. But he's not the God that we get taught about at Sunday school. You know "The God and the Devil, God is good, the Devil is bad".

What if there is no devil, there is only God? Maybe the devil is just an invention for control purposes, and God gets to blame him like a kid blames his invisible friend for the puddle on the floor? What if God meddles in our lives for no other purpose other than personal gratification? It's like a kid playing with ants, some live, some die, it’s nothing personal. Some go under the magnifying glass to be fried by the sun, some get away, but it’s not as if the kid hates the specific ant, it’s just an ant.

Now being a rational, scientific type of person I realise that there absolutely no evidence for God. But I can also see that statistically, yesterday could not have happened, and that just lately there have been way too many days that statistically should not have happened!

Go figure!



Roswell Ivory, facing a demon!

Pimping Perfume

It’s Christmas time again folks, and that can only mean one thing…Yay! It’s time for those tacky perfume ads on T.V. According to the telly, perfume is the standard present of choice for Christmas. Few things make you feel as fabulous as unwrapping a jewel-like bottle of sweet, captivating fragrance. Perfume is the ultimate mood booster, an affordable luxury, and guaranteed to get you in touch with your inner sensuality. So the adverts tell us anyway.

Now I love watching Nicole Kidman sweat for her millions as much as the next girl, but does any right-minded intelligent woman actually kid herself she’ll be like our lovely Nicole, just by spraying herself with Chanel No. 5? Do men actually believe that their women will feel loved and pampered if they buy them an exquisitely designed bottle of the world’s best selling perfume? Who the hell cares what chemical gloop is inside it, as long as the advert says it’s sexy, right?

The smell is largely irrelevant to most fragrance sales, as long as it’s fairly pleasant and doesn’t make the object of your attraction blow chunks. It’s more important that the woman likes the packaging. The important thing is the pretty glass container and the clever marketing-speak that goes with the liquid, because it reflects how you see yourself. It’s the image that counts for everything. In the same way that a beautiful fashion photograph in a woman’s magazine sells fantasies to women, so too that gorgeous sexy bottle of amber coloured liquid promises that you will suddenly become irresistible to the opposite sex. If you spray yourself with this wonder-gloop, you too will be a glamorous sex goddess, you will suddenly have ravishing young men turning their heads in the street, following you round, buying you flowers. Your life will be perfect, because you too will become Nicole Kidman, because you too WILL FEEL BEAUTIFUL.



It’s not just about the glamorous advert of course. The bottles are what sell the scent, and they have to be works of art. The shape of the bottle dictates what market the perfume is aimed at, and the marketing-speak that accompanies the advert is geared accordingly. For young trendy hip-young-things, you have the “spontaneous and seductive” CK1 (simple but chic frosted bottle shape). For the up-market older woman, you have crystal glassware, such as the Versace “Bright Crystal” “for the confident glamorous woman," in a divine shade of vivid pink cut glass, with a bottle stopper that looks like a humungous diamond the size of my Aunty Aggie’s giant bunion.

Now let's consider the secondary element, the scent. Perfumes contain a variety of natural and chemical concoctions designed to react with human sweat to produce an enticing smell which emulates ovulation hormones. Because no one person’s sweat smells the same, the perfume does react differently with each person. Thus what may smell bloody horny on you, may make me smell absolutely awful. My skin is very acidic in nature, and thus most perfumes smell like cat’s pee after I’ve worn them for an hour or two. That’s why “Poison” really does smell like rat poison on me, but “hump me Big Boy” on you.

And don’t even get me started on wearing perfumes that contain real pheromones. Yes I’ve tried them, in the hope of suddenly making my dear husband find me utterly irresistible and want to bonk me all night. Unfortunately all Rich ended up with was a mammoth splitting headache that lasted for two days, and needless to say, no hanky-panky at all. The stuff which was guaranteed to make me sex-personified, actually ended up being sprayed in the loo to freshen it, whereupon visitors suddenly started to spend a heck of a lot more time in my lavatory than they ever used to. Clearly my toilet is hornier than I am.

So, ladies, do you ever fall for the ultra-subtle marketing-speak? For example, do try Sean Paul’s bogglingly-named “Unforgivable,” “created to reflect the warmth and sensuality of a woman’s body.” (In actual fact this smells like “eau-de-wet-Labrador-after-rolling-in-mud,” and the best I can say about it is that it should indeed be for the “bold, confident woman,” because you’d have to be insanely brave to try it. Still at least the name is apt.)

Who writes this crap? Dammit, I wanna go work for these marketing companies. Somebody please pay me to write this rubbish. I can’t imagine a job that would be more fun. Those perfume advertisers must think we were born yesterday. Seriously…….I mean SERIOUSLY…..would any self-respecting woman believe all that hype?

By the way Rich, as it’s Christmas, I’m rather taken with that new Christina Aguilera perfume. Sexy bottle, plus it‘s covered in “seductive” black lace, plus the pong is not unpleasant either….Obviously this will make me feel “classy, sensual and in touch with my inner woman.”. And according to the marketing hype, it will reflect the real me…“sexy, juicy and daringly different.”
Yeah right. At the cost of a month’s lattes at my local coffee shop, it may turn out to be the most expensive juicy loo-freshener ever.



In case you are actually wondering if I do wear perfume, or if instead I just embrace my inner glow and really reek like a pole-cat, my long term scent is Cerruti 1881. This is traditionally viewed as an old lady’s perfume, which goes splendidly with my glamorous “mad old cat lady” image. So what if I wear perfume for geriatrics? I rather like the smell actually. Of the perfume, I mean, not the geriatrics.

The Christmassy images are of course of Pirate Maiden.

A Perfect Storm

At the high risk of annoying my beloved Don, I must regretably report that Morgan Stanley is the first bank to issue a full blown recession alert for the US, warning of a "perfect storm" for consumers as the housing crisis spreads.

In a report "Recession Coming" released yesterday, the bank said the credit crunch had started to inflict some serious damage on US companies, resulting in a sharp slowdown in business investment. It predicts that the Fed's interest rate cuts are too little, too late, and that a recession is inevitable.

The "R" word makes Don and I argue. Oh dear. I really do hope that his fluffy economic view of the future is right, for all our sakes, but for now I remain firmly Chicken Little. In the meantime ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.



I resolved not to blog about economics any more. Clearly I blew it.
Here's Lou-Lou, ready to beat us pessimistic economists into submission.

Power to the Children

In the1920’s the evolution of printing lithography and the birth of the Leica gave birth to Photojournalism and the concept of the illustrated newspaper. This new technology resulted in the most important persuasive visual medium (before television) and subsequently changed the way humans viewed the world around them. From the 1930’s onwards, magazines such as the British "Picture Post" and the American "Life" publications had enormous status and were able to mould public opinion and the way they shaped society. Behold the power of the visual image!

Nowadays of course, the web is similarly changing human behaviour at a fundamental level. Humans spend large amounts of time online, reading, accessing, researching and assessing information. Then they use what they learn to collaborate with each other, refine the information, and use it to shape their own opinion as to the way the world works. Consequently they are learning vastly different thought processes and ways of viewing information and society than the older pre-internet people grew up with.

Our kids are now “the net generation” and because they are learning in a different way to the methods by which Rich and I learned, they are effectively re-wiring their brains with different software. In the book “Wikinomics”, Don Tapscott calls them the “integrity generation,” because they are learning to demand integrity from the institutions they deal with, whether they be governments, companies, or educational institutions.

Growing up with a constant source of information on the internet means that our children now take transparency for granted. If they hear something on the news on T.V., and they think it sounds suspicious, they check it online. They collaborate, they look for the truth, they gather all information, and they find the real answer for themselves.

Although it is possible to lie online, because of the vast network of millions of people, such falsehoods can be discovered and disproved very quickly. It is much harder for governments to cover up scandal and spread misinformation than it was before the birth of the internet. Nowadays, people do not automatically believe everything they are told by authority. In the words of the X Files, “the truth is out there,” and it is a heck of a lot easier to find than it ever used to be.

If I find out my local council is going to build crappy houses in a beautiful and hitherto protected area of outstanding beauty, I can go online, help form a protest group, organise meetings, raise funds, publicise and gather support, and through this collective gathering of minds, we can put a stop to the development. Which is exactly what has happened several times in our local community inside the last year.

Do you realise what immense power this is?

The power to the people to think differently, to discover the truth about the world, and to change it into something better. This is the power that our kids are learning. They will use this new technology to shape a society which will be a very different place from the one Rich and I grew up in.

And the most wonderful thing about this power is that it seems to be overwhelmingly a force for good.



This is Kate, from last year.

The Santa Nun

Apparently I'm well over due for doing a post and I've been threatened with death , or at least no supper, if I don’t do a post today. I have also been instructed that it must be a serious photographic post. Ho Hum.

Well in the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with my CGI packages, learning what they do and how they do it. I'm also finding out that’s it’s all too easy to crash these things. I don’t know who writes these but it’s really not acceptable for an app to lock and crash after several hours losing all the work you've done. So now I know to save everything very often.

But I have made some achievements. I know most of the methods used to create skin and make it look good. I'm not at the 100% photorealistic stage yet but I'm getting a book from Santa on how to make photorealistic faces. The techniques should then be applicable to the whole body.

I've been learning about rigging models, sounds kinky doesn’t it! Unfortunately it’s not the process of tying them up and dangling them from the ceiling but the technique of taking the models skin envelope and attaching it to a bone structure so that you can animate the body. This is really tricky to do well as human joints are a pig to get right, and don’t get me started about having your hand go right through your tummy when you move your shoulder!

Hair has also been fun. Hair simulation is getting pretty good and I'm slowly getting better at it. The main problem I have at the moment is with the computer I'm running it on, well one of them anyways. I tried to render some fur and accidently set the number of hair instances too high. I was greeted with a nice error message as the app crashed telling me it had failed to allocate 7GB of ram. Whoops. Maybe I should run it on the XP64 machine I have.

So anyways I spent this morning putting together a piccy for you to show you what I have acheived so far. Today’s WIP. Lin took one look at this and described it as a nun in a Santa hat, so she is now and always shall be the Santa Nun.

I present to you the Santa Nun in all her glory, or at least her head, as I didn’t model the rest.



You'll notice that the Santa Nun doesn’t have real eyes, I could say that this is because she’s really possessed by the devil and thus we should rename this TSNPD - "The Santa Nun Possessed by the Devil", but in reality I just I ran out of time and didn’t have time to add more realistic eyes. I think it’s kind of cool anyway.

The whole poly count of the model needs to go up and I need to add some actual details to the skin beyond colouring and reflection models. But I'm still working on that.

You can also see the fur that caused the problems. As one of my fluffies she was supposed to be fluffier and the fur whiter but at 20mins to render I wasn’t going to spend too long playing around.

The real Christmas fluffy for this post is Clayre McKinnen

Banana Wisdom

Well, as Gary and Mark kindly pointed out, things may yet not turn out to be as bad as they seemed yesterday. So far everyone appears to be adopting the “Te audire no possum, musa sapientum fixa est in aure” approach, which if you recall, is Latin for “I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.”

Clearly my beloved friend has decided that women with brain tumours do crazy things, and I may yet be able to use the temporary insanity defence. Although it’s been a little more than temporary after eighteen months of blogging. Still, I’ll cling to that excuse as long as I am able to. I can live with pretending nothing has happened, although I suspect I’m about to be dropped like a hot potato from our social circle. Ah well, as the aging-singalonga-pretend-Robbie-Williams told us at the (very loud) rock concert at the local village church last Friday, “At least we have our health.” Or not, in my case.

Anyhoo, I’ll suck it and see. News reports from the resident SPAM (now amended to “Socially-Passed up-Abandoned-Miscreant”) as and when it happens.

In the meantime, I would just like to take a moment to show you all some LURVE……

Yes indeedy, many of you rank very highly on my “totally-fabulous-people-meter.”

“Why?” you ask.

What do photographers do when one of their own is in trouble? Well, apparently they send you random photographs to make you feel better. Of nudes, erotica, vegetables, landscapes, people, Christmas, even of gorgeous pussies (both kinds!) Rarely a day goes by when I don’t wake up to an email with a unbelievably cool piccie attached. And they are really beautiful, let me tell you that. (Although after a spate of being sent open leg shots a few months back, I tend to be a little more cautious now when opening email attachments on a full stomach just after breakfast – please remembers folks I am a middle-aged heterosexual female i.e. More nekkid male model shots would be superb, thank you so much for your consideration.)

Believe me, I am one of the luckiest SPAM in the world, as 99 percent of these images are truly outstanding. Many of them never made it to your blogs or ports, for whatever reason, but I can promise you I am privvy to one of the best private nude art collections in the world.

Dang, I’m a fortunate person. Thank you so much folks! I can promise you they make me really happy :-)

Although Rich keeps asking why no-one keeps sending pretty pictures to him, only to his wife.

(Subtle-hint: please send piccies to Rich too, or else I’m in deep doo-doo. Thank you.)



Sorry, I really can't face another Christmas series photograph today. Have spent large portion of today wrapping presents, and am totally yuled-out. So here is another-almost-Christmassy-picture, of Pirate Maiden this time. Please note she is smiling. This is rare, as according to her hubby, she never ever smiles for photographers.

Doomed

Well, the unthinkable has happened.

One of my local female friends has discovered the blog. This was due to a silly error on my part – I sent her a rushed email from my modelling account, rather than my personal one. A simple click of the wrong button, and life has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Although she knows I model, to say this blog is outside of her personal comfort zone is a colossal understatement.

Damn and blast my incompetence! I want to delete the blog right now. Rich won’t let me.

Shit.

Just when I thought life couldn’t get much worse.

Big ramifications, folks.

HUGE.



On a happier note, this is a piccie of Claire Louisa, lookin’ fluffy.

The Christmas Fluffies

The Challenge?

1. Take five beautiful models, and one ultra-cheesy Santa hat.

2. Very politely request reluctant models to wear said hat for a few minutes at the end of each shoot.

3. When aforementioned models refuse (on grounds of good taste), apply the super-patented-ultra-smoooooth-Mr-Fluffy-Charm.

Voila!

Result = The 2007 Christmas Fluffy Series.

The amazingly brave yet totally futile attempt to produce tasteful nude art, whilst simultaneously inducing that garish and tacky feeling of Yule.

Enjoy…

(Several times a week until Christmas, I’m afraid…)



Are we all feeling Christmassy yet?

The Meaning of Inspiration

One of the most over-used words in the nude photographic world is “inspiration.” You only have to go on MM or other photography forums to notice that photographers and models use the term all the time.

“Darling you inspire me!” is a phrase I’ve heard way too much over the last couple of years. Of course, it’s a compliment, and it’s meant well, but it’s kind of like an air-kiss or a friend request on MM. It’s usually not a true feeling - it’s just another form of networking, of pimping yourself. Used too often, it’s meaningless and empty. It’s just another love fest.

I guess I sound pretty grumpy and cynical about this, and you’re right, I shouldn’t be. Everyone likes to hear they inspire others. Of course they do. And I wanna be loved as much as the next model. Show me mega-love people! Heck, I really WANT TO be the most inspiring-middle-aged-nude-model-writer ever (yeah, right, like that‘s ever going to happen.) And you never see Rich objecting to being told he’s an inspirational photographer (he gets told it often.)

But does it mean anything?

Well, it means a great deal if the person saying it genuinely feels an emotional response to your work, but I’m guessing this actually happens a lot less than we would like to believe. Otherwise Rich and I would be such amazingly inspirational icons, we’d be walking on water by now.

“Inspiration” is a sacred word. The Greek word for inspiration is “Theopneustos.” It literally means “God-breathed,” or given by the inspiration of God. The theology is that the Divine Being/spirit/goddess/giant-marshmallow-man who presides over us all actually uses human faculties to guide mortals to “record the ultimate truth.”

Basically, the word is used (in both the theological and the artistic sense) to explain a supernatural or mysterious divine influence on artists, musicians, writers, photographers and so forth to record, communicate and channel the truth. This process of “making truth” requires a combination of both the artist’s human personality, intermingling with the revelation inside the artist’s head. Only if both elements are present, can powerful art be created.

Inspiration is therefore much more than stimulating someone into having a new photographic or artistic idea. It is more than giving someone a new insight into a way to produce a pretty picture. Of course, the word is usually used in these contexts, and many photographers will say, “I was inspired by Ansel Adams/Weston/Insert-another-great-photographer's-name-here to take this shot.” Naturally, studying another photographer will give you rough ideas, and you might like to copy his ideas and adapt them to your own. However, to me at least, inspiration is much more than that.

As a photographer (or a dedicated art model who is passionate about art) you shoot because you have to. It is essential to you as eating. If you don’t make art, you’ll be grumpy, unfulfilled, hell to live with. Part of you is missing if you’re not making that photograph, creating that image in your head. Only when you’ve made that imaginary picture actually real, and recorded on camera, only then can you feel release.

This process is what I mean by “inspiration.”

You might not believe in God or the giant marshmallow-man, although this is actually irrelevant. The mere fact that “something” inside you makes you create those pictures- THAT is the process of real “inspiration.” The process comes from your own psyche. Not from reading other people’s work, or looking at other people’s photographs or paintings. Other artists may stimulate your thoughts, but the real inspiration comes from YOU the artist, and whatever supernatural or psychological force you tune into when you experience the process of artistic creation.

So my plea to you is not to use the word “inspired” lightly.

You are your own inspiration. You create your own truth. No-one else can give that to you.



Of course, for those who don't remotely believe in divine beings or supernatural-marshmallow-men (hi Rich!), then you should clearly refer to the next Highest Authority in the Cosmos. Which is Google of course.

So if you Google “nudes inspiration,” the number one nude inspiration in the world is…wait for it…… Iris Dassault (as reviewed by Newcastle Art Nudes.)

Bet she didn’t know that!