The Makeover

Welcome to the new look of Fluffytek.

I've spent the last week reworking the website, creating new graphics and layouts, sorting through the images and updating the galleries. Lots of work and lots of changes; it's a completely new site.

The gallery now has expanding images, just like the pages from the blog. For those of you who are curious, you can't do the expanding blog images thing without hosting the blog on your own website.

It was all finished off yesterday and all that remained were the changes to the blogger templates to make everything look coherent. So I spent yesterday afternoon editing the template in blogger and when it was finished, I saved the changes without publishing so that when I did this post all the updates would go through at once, and hay presto the new shiny Fluffytek site would be announced.

You can imagine how annoyed I was to get up this morning and find that blogger had published the changes anyway. Thus some of you had a preview of the new look but with all the links broken, and the page still embedded in a frame. So it looked ghastly and broken. Sorry about that.

So I took the whole site down!

And now it's back up.

You can navigate the site from the links at the top. You can keep up with what we are doing with twitter. We have one twitter account for Fluffytek and we will prefix Lin's twitters with L: and my twitters with R: so you know who is saying what.

So:
Do you like the new site?
Is it not awesomely good looking?
Is Twitter a good idea?
Do you want to hear our insane ramblings?

Please take a look around and let us know what you think.

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This is Ivory Flame launching herself as well as the new Fluffytek website.

The Absence of Self

“There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me but I had it surgically removed.”
Peter Sellers

No doubt some of you will be wondering why our blogging has been minimal in the past few weeks. It hasn’t all been over-work-related. I’ve been feeling slightly below par recently. This is totally unlike me, as I‘m usually an incredibly balanced and sensible person (It’s true, and you can all just stop laughing now, otherwise I‘ll thump you.). However there’s no doubt that strange things have been happening, courtesy of my expanding/shrinking/currently-in-its-death-throes-tumour.

I was warned of course that there would be lasting side effects of the treatment, But being warned about something isn’t the same as living it. The effects are really kicking in now. Vertigo, pain, nausea, chronic itchy head (I nearly shaved my head yesterday out of sheer desperation.) And my personality is changing on a daily basis, depending on what part of my brain the tumour is pressing today. Rich is an absolute saint for putting up with me, I can tell you that. For example I woke up yesterday as an atheist, for no reason at all (Rich calls it enlightenment and takes it as a good sign!)

I’ve absolutely no idea what has happened to “the real me.” She’s long gone. I’m a floating voter at the moment. I’ve nearly deleted the blog at least 21 times last week (that’s three times a day.) Now don’t you go feeling sympathy for me, 'cos that will only make me mad. And I’ll probably delete this post anyway, but assuming I decide to leave it up or you catch it via RSS feeds, this is by way of explanation as to what’s happening in The Fluffytek Photographic World. Oh and Rich worked 82 hours last week. The man is superhuman. He really is.

Anyhoo, I’m not feeling despondent about all of this, and I do know I’ll get past all the side effects, but in the meantime, you can anticipate wacky personality changes on my part, and no doubt the bloggie-style and contents will fluctuate accordingly.

For example, I’ve been tempted to pick up a camera recently. Very strongly tempted. Resistance to this foolish notion is not aided by the fact that Rich has offered me his old Canon 350D. Not that I want to shoot female nudes though. No worries there (I’m not that crazy. Yet.) But sometimes I really do get tempted to view life from the other side of the lens. T’would be interesting, and rather therapeutic, methinks. Plus it would provide answers to the constant questions I inevitably ask “How do they do that? What lighting do they use? How is a photograph produced?” (Rather than the viewer’s/writer’s perspective of why?) Hmm. We shall see. I really would make a terrible photographer you know.

Right, off to my lime-and-lemon-grass-flavoured-bubble-bath. If I don’t decide to go to the dark side and take up photography or full-time writing, I might alternatively pursue a new and exciting career inbreeding Norwegian Forest cats, or even start a company selling exotic-flavoured-bubble-bath. Plus we could get some really good photos of bubblicious models (with said Norwegian Forest Cats) soaking in a giant steamy foamy tub. Cliché. Cliché. Predictable glamour photography, I know. Rich is shuddering at the thought.

Anyway, who gives a damn if a photograph’s been done many times before, as long as it smells nice?

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Pirate Maiden. I've no idea if she smells nice, but very probably.

This post will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

Who is the Mystery Model?

This is Rich’s favourite model from the Scott Church workshop last weekend.

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Unbelievably Rich has forgotten her name (hey I thought I was the one with the memory problems?) and she left early so they couldn’t exchange contact details. So if anyone reading this knows who she is, please let us know!

Incidentally Rich has a bit of a thing about Christina Ricci, to whom our lovely mystery lady bears more than a passing resemblance, so I’m not entirely surprised he was rather taken with her. That’s polite British lingo for:

Yay! I’ve finally found a model that our dear photographer has a crush on! O.K. so it’s not much of a crush, but seriously , I was starting to worry that he’s seen so many scantily clad laydeez that he was becoming immune to the charms of beautiful women. It’s only healthy to sometimes be attracted to whom you’re photographing, you know.

What’s the point of being a photographer if beauty doesn’t move you?

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The ravishing-Christina-Ricci-lookalike-mystery-model-with-the-sultry-steamy-pout. She doesn't do nudes incidentally, so don't get your hopes up.

Kiss my shiny latex ass

To those who actually noticed, apologies for being off-blog for a wee while.

Life has been better. Rich is working through the nights on the day-job software (and I miss him!) plus my head is really playing up and I am wackeroo with PMS. Gah! Get me to the nearest pub. I need alcohol and it’s only 1 p.m.

I'm swamped with day-job work too. It’s our busiest two weeks of the year, so I’m refraining from cruising the blogs (boo hoo!) or posting again until the stress eases off a bit. Lots going on behind the scenes photographically. And I mean lots. Some good, some not so good, some which I definitely can’t post here because it’s too photographically political (now that’s got you wondering eh?)

However Rich did find time at some ungodly hour of the night last night to put in a new groovy feature to the bloggie images, so when you click on them, they swoosh larger, rather than pop up.

Yes I know I’ve posted this image before but it has the dual purpose of accurately describing our week, plus also illustrates the feature perfectly.

Click on my ass and you’ll see what I mean.

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Ass gets bigger.
Click again.
Ass gets smaller.
Click.
Ass gets bigger…
Etc, etc.

Kinda hypnotic after a while. Or it will put you off your breakfast. Either works for me.

The Scott Church Workshop

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of going to one of Scott Church's workshops in the lovely, if rather eclectic location of 'The Roost' in London.

The Roost is an interesting location with multiple mixed up rooms, peculiar decor and mismatched furniture that reminded me more of student digs than of a location studio. Its large windows gave each room as much light as was available on what was a very overcast and cold day. Unfortunately the basement area, which was very reminiscent of an Austin Powers Set and would have produced the most interesting images, was not well lit and without a flash or tripod shooting there was out of the question.

So the basic premise of the day was to shoot using natural light and see what we could come up with. In many ways it felt more like a group shoot with minor supervision from Scott, who was always willing to lend a hand with posing of the models and general guidance.

My main reason for going was to gain some supervised experience at shooting a location with natural light. Thanks to Scott this is exactly what I got!

However, working at ASA400 (oops ISO400) f2.8 and 1/60-1/80 was pretty limiting for me and I found myself thinking too much about the camera, depth of field problems and camera shake rather than posing of the models. Having worked pretty much constantly in the studio for the last few years I did find myself wishing for some flash equipment, even if was only a simple off-camera strobe.

It was an interesting day and the models and Scott were lovely. I think though, that if I decide to start location work, I may invest in some small portable flash heads and light-weight stands. I guess it just appeals to the control freak in me.

Anyway after subsequently looking at all the images, I suddenly realised that all the photographs I shot were portraits and I prefer them all in black and white. I guess it's just how I see things nowadays.

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This is Jen.

Who would you rather be?

Myths … are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.
Ansel Adams.

The latest in-game at my youngest son’s school is: Who would you rather be?

Now I thought that the obvious choices would be between football heroes such as David Beckham, and pop stars? But this is no ordinary school. This is Hogwarts. So these three little kids decided that they would set their sights a little higher. They decided to choose between God, Zeus and the Devil.

"How come you decided to be Zeus?" I asked my son?
“Because he’s the God of all Gods, he’s big and strong and he’s cool. And he can zap people with lightening.”

So there we have it. My nine-year old son’s ultimate icon is not only a Greek God, but THE Greek God. With that sort of ambition, I’m guessing that he’s gonna go far.
Damn it almost makes those humungous school fees worthwhile.

But it does beg the question, who is your photo-icon and why?

The word icon is derived from the Greek eikon, meaning an image. In the artistic context, icons are visual representations or symbols of sacred or complex concepts (often religious), but the word is also used in modern language to describe the image-makers, in other words, an artist who is so innovative he is practically a super-hero. The UK ex-New-Nude magazine, now dumbed down, de-nuded and rebranded to the absolutely dreadful Photo Icon, uses the term icon to describe “cutting edge photography produced by pioneering photographers.” (Aside: Do NOT buy this magazine. It has no naked women, it is entirely safe for work, and has now become so boring it reviews hiking boots. Honestly. I cancelled our subscription.)

As for me, I’m big on icons, though they are always real-life people as opposed to dead Gods. I favour artists who have pushed the boundaries, who think outside the box. Those photographers whose art moves me emotionally, whose images make me really think, who show me their version of truth and zap my world with an uncustomary lightening bolt.

Several of you fall into this category. I really look up to you, but I ain’t gonna tell you that personally. Lord, no. You’ll get an insufferably big head, or think I’m a bloggie stalker, or I’ll be called a suck-up. Heaven forbid I’d be labelled a “fan.” Ugh. How unbearably crass. We British middle-aged ladies retain a stiff upper lip at all times, whilst secretly nurturing adolescent adoration for your sheer balls and artistic talent.

Do you care? Good heavens no. The whole point of Zeus is to make us realise just how insignificant we mere mortals are. You’re a living icon. I don’t exist in your world, other than as a member of the unwashed masses. I am a mere plebeian to your Zeus.

As for my ultimate icon, why of course it must be my beloved Artiste en Residence. (I have to say that, otherwise he’ll sulk.) No really. He is my hero. He’s also so incredibly Zeus-like that apparently he has no icon. They are pointless in his opinion. He only aspires to be the best he can be. He’s his own super-hero. Pah! This is either very enlightened or the arrogance of a horrendously large ego. I’m not entirely sure which.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people's minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.
Audrey Hepburn.



Zeus and Hera, having a cuddle.

(R7) Food Matters

Q: What Do Models Eat?

A: They don’t :-)



I often get asked this question, not by models of course, but by the general public who see my images and say “Wow, how do you stay so thin and look so good at your age, and after three kids too? What’s your secret?” Well, let’s leave aside the fact that this makes me feel like a geriatric (having children and being over forty does NOT mean you’re about to die of old age) and instead let’s look at the subject of food.

Now this discussion shouldn’t be about size, or weight, which are IMO both irrelevant. It should be about health and nourishment. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that. O.K. So here we go again:

With all the modern rumpus about size zero models and the media’s obsession with skinny A-list stars like Victoria Beckham, there is an unnatural preoccupation nowadays with exactly what models shove in their gob. You can’t open a newspaper or magazine without reading about the latest top 10 diet tips, lose 20 lbs in two weeks, look like an A-lister, be a size zero for ultimate happiness, lose fifty pounds on the lemonade diet, lose a hundred pounds on the cardboard diet, get thin with the sex diet (this one actually works incidentally, if you do it enough), you name it and it’s been shoved in women’s faces on a daily basis for the last fifteen years or so. The situation is getting worse. Bulimia and anorexia are on the increase. Women in the UK have even taken to having stomach stapling operations, in a desperate effort to look skinny like their fave celeb. Aargh!!!

I could write extensively about this for magazines. I’ve come across practically every diet and nutrition programme on the planet over the years, so it’s a fair bet I could make a very (financially) healthy living writing articles about how to lose weight, telling women how to get thin by feeding their Western weight obsessions. It’s trivial to write about this sort of thing. Any of you could do it. All you need is imagination. It’s easy to make loadsa money from other people’s insecurities and miseries. (I used to be a lawyer. Trust me on this – I know.)

So why don’t I? Well, I don’t have many principles, but I WILL NOT knowingly contribute to someone else’s eating disorder. I’m happy to talk about photography until the cows come home, I will gladly encourage you to model (regardless of your body size or shape) but teaching people how to look like a skinny supermodel? Pah, count me out!

On the other hand, if you want to know how to extend your life by eating the right foods, if you are interested in mood food, preventing cancer or heart disease, feeling better about yourself, being the best woman (and model) you can ever be, regardless of how much you weigh, then I’m happy to discuss. I am passionate and evangelistic about your health. I am a life-extending zealot. By all means talk to me about how you can use food to extend your lifespan (yes, even by eating chocolate cake), but trust me, you won’t improve it one bit by trying to look like a supermodel. Wanting to be like anyone else does not equal happiness. In fact, it will make you miserable. As I have often said before, the only way you are EVER going to be happy is to accept yourself for who you are, and love your body as well as your personality.

Now if you’re still patiently reading this, let’s go back to the original practical question. What do models eat? Well whereas many models do actually eat proper food because they believe in nourishing their bodies, in my experience there are far too many professional models who either yo-yo diet, where their weight fluctuates wildly over time, or often they don’t eat at all. They should but they don’t. Many will nibble at a little gak (garbage and crap) now and again, but many of the ones I have known simply adopt the nil-by-mouth philosophy if a shoot is coming up, and then binge at McDonalds afterwards. (No I’m not exaggerating – this is based on specific examples.) Unfortunately this practice of starve, shoot ‘n’ binge just feeds the problem (pun intended!)

So maybe women should be asking different questions: How do we improve our physical and mental health? How do we cease our female obsession with size? How do we stop hating and being afraid of food? (Especially those of us who are models, because we act as examples for others to follow.) How do we stop this madness of emotional dependency on what we shove in our mouths?

As for what I eat? Well, let me say that I am passionate about my food. I love to cook my body the proper fuel that it needs to sustain it. Mainly I follow Michael Pollan's advice: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." And I make a point to teach my kids that too. I’ll be damned if I’m ever going to let my daughter grow up with an eating disorder because she’s obsessed with looking like Kate Moss.

She’s worth more than that.

And so are you.



All images are of Lilmummy.

Sex on a stalk (Part 2)

This is what Rich looks at when he looks out of his office window.
Isn’t she beautiful?

If, as Ed Versosky proposed a while back, plants can be portraits of the artist too (see? I pay attention, I learn, I remember) then my magnificent Fritillaria Imperialis is surely a portrait of me.

This is pure photographic plant porn. A spikey fluffy top with full, vibrant luscious lips opened wide underneath, displaying her juicy dangling, sexual organs to the world. This beats my love-ball shot hands-down for explicit erotica. You can’t get much more open-leg than this.

Don't ya just love it?
Mother nature - the original and best pornographic artist.

Now…who wants to stroke my Fritillaria?

Fritillaria Imperialis (Crown Imperial)

(Please do check out Ed’s amazing Mr Bamboo self-portrait at the above link – much more tasteful than mine. Sorry to drag you into this Ed.)

Profit Before Ego

It’s Monday morning. Grab a coffee. Let’s talk money.

From what I understand, most art nude prints are sold to collectors, often regular folks like me who collect the art that they love. Over a lifetime I will probably build up quite a collection of paintings and photography, and of course I live in hope of finding I have a modern equivalent of a Carla Bruni print that is worth a fortune (don’t mind me, I’m only jealous) but in the meantime, whilst I lie back and wait for my equivalent collector’s financial miracle to occur, I’ll just keep on plodding along with my low-budget collecting of photos that tickle my fancy.

Now the key phrase in the last paragraph was “low-budget.” Of course like most ordinary everyday wannabe art collectors, I’m broke (this is the credit crunch after all.) There’s not much in my wallet apart from the odd moth or three. Carla Bruni and Lucian Freud collectors aside, most ordinary folks who collect art only have a few $$$ spare a month, and will only buy a piece occasionally for a present, or when they find an exceptional print that they really, really must have. Even then, in my case, if the photograph costs over about $50, it’s out of my league, and most folks I know are in the same boat.

So how does that help you, the poor starving artist who relies upon print sales as a bit of extra cash to fund his art?

Now some of you out there will think that me paying you $50 for a print is entirely reasonable (and that would be those of you who are still selling prints, I suspect) but some of you will be horrified, because you know your art is worth much more than that. Based on past print price sales, perhaps you won’t even consider getting out of bed for less than $300-$1000+ a print?

If this is the case, then congrats! You have just priced yourself out of the majority of the modern art collector’s market. O.K. Let me explain. We are entering a recession. You can only sell your art at the price which the market will bear. You need to drop your prices if you want to survive. There’s no use holding out for the wealthy collectors (unless you have Carla piccies of course) because they won’t be able to buy from you very soon. Remember, people want to collect something which is both affordable and desirable. They want a bargain.

My recommendation to you, as your trusty nekkid financial adviser, is to adjust your intended marketing strategy, depending on your goals. If you want to regularly supplement your income by selling prints, then consider dropping the price. Shop around for lower printing/packaging/shipping methods (without overly compromising on quality of course), offer limited editions , a “print of the month” (does this idea work? I’ve no idea), and schmooze your regular clients with entertaining email updates and access to private “exclusive” web site images (Stephen Haynes does this wonderfully and he doesn’t do too badly in print sales I suspect.) Plus please do consider selling smaller prints. Small canvas b+w photographic prints really sell well over here in the UK, because they are perceived as “fashionable art” (I’ve no idea if this is the “in-thing” in the States as well.)

If you think I’m talking out of my ass again, then I guess you have to ask yourself what your priorities are? Do you want the occasional high-value sale to a wealthy collector, and your name to remain relatively unknown, or do you want to opt for selling cheaper prints to ordinary everyday mortals (like me) and thus increasing your (marketing) exposure? Surely you are more likely to be more well-known in the long-term, if you pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap now?

If you sell lots of smaller, inexpensive prints to regular devoted fans who collect your art because they love it, just think about how many of your photographs will be “out there” after say, five years? How much more successful will you be?

What use is being posh, obscure and exclusive if no-one can afford to buy your work?



Ooh, I've been waiting for over a week to show these images of devoted couple Syd and A.J. from last week's steamy shoot. (A lot of fun, and really great piccies too - thanks guys!)

The Search For The God Particle

Disclaimer: I know nothing about physics, other than it really turns me on. Handy then, that Rich has a degree in it. Getting him to write about it is a somewhat harder task however, so you‘re gonna have to out up with my feeble stab at it instead. Incidentally this has nothing whatsoever to do with photography. But it does make me horny.

People of the cloth will always tell you that mankind will never be able to prove that God exists, or how the universe was created. You have to take it on faith. That doesn’t stop scientists trying, however, and they are about to come mighty close to proving the existence, not of God Himself, but of His particles. The intention is to answer the unanswerable question: how does matter have mass, and thus exist in a form that results in the creation of the universe and all that comprises it?

This is no less than the quest to prove how the world was created, and has been the Holy Grail of physics for over 40 years, ever since Peter Higgs proposed in 1964 that the universe is pervaded by an invisible field of tiny things called bosons which consist of mass but not much else. As particles move through this field, the bosons stick to them, thus increasing their mass whilst leaving others, such as photons (light particles which have no mass), unaffected.

This mysterious boson has become so fundamental to physics that it is known as The God Particle. But no-one has been able to prove it is real. Until now. Later this year, a mysterious device in Cern, Geneva called an atom-smasher (or Large Hadron Collider or LHC to give it its proper name) is apparently virtually guaranteed to find these bosons. Scientists have glimpsed them from experiments using smaller particle accelerators, but they’ve never been able to categorically prove their existence.

Bosons are elusive little buggers by all accounts. They are supposed to exist only at very high energies, which last existed in the moments after the Big Bang, and thus the only way of finding them is using the homogenously large atom-smasher. And big it certainly is. It will fire beams of protons around seventeen miles of underground tunnels before they eventually reach the speed of light and collide, thus releasing vast bursts of energy. The boson particles will then be found by specially developed detectors which are situated in cathedral-sized caverns under the ground. Then of course begins the mammoth task of sifting through and analysing the vast amounts of data before scientists can categorically prove that the God Particle exists. The final results should be ready some time in 2009.

So this is the story so far. If they scientists pull this off, one of the most fundamental questions of physics will be answered, namely why matter has mass. Make no mistake people, this is BIG. Does the God Particle exist, or is it just a figment of imagination? Can we finally find a small piece of the most important puzzle in the history of the universe: the mystery of how our world was created?

Are you getting excited yet? Because I certainly am.



Amy, searching for her own bosons.

Standing At the Helm

Sorry about yesterday’s wallow in doom. I don’t know what came over me.

Sheesh.

It's unlike me to be so maudlin.
(To those of you who missed it, count your lucky stars.)

The economy forms a large proportion of my day-job, and I guess being constantly soaked in negativity can really kick the crap out of me sometimes. Yes the world economy is in a nose-dive. Things are going to get really, really bad. Even more reason then for me to concentrate on making this blog an oasis of escapism and positivity (for our own sanity as much as for you folks.)

An accountant’s job is to stand at the helm of the ship, and steer her business (and blog) through the choppy seas, and bring them both safely out the other side. Yesterday I guess I temporarily fell overboard.

In future I promise to try to refrain from talking out of my ass, and concentrate on having a bit of fun.

This model really needs to diet or that cat-suit’s gonna blow

Does A Photograph Have to Tell A Story?

Since time immemorial philosophers and artists have believed that art must express a degree of depth, that it must communicate some sort of wisdom. In the 1700’s the philosopher Sir Joshua Reynolds stated that in order to be great art, a painting must tell a major story. In order to fully appreciate that art, viewers had to decipher or “read” this story from the image and understand its meaning.

This ethos has continued to permeate modern photographic philosophy, particularly in the nude photographic genre. It is not enough that the camera captures reality – in order for a photograph to be deemed successful photographic art, there must be an element of a story, something “more” to draw the viewer in. As a random example, dip into any image in the magnificent Fetish Photo Anthology 5, and you’ll find a story. Each image has a different tale to tell, even the (supposedly simple) portraits.

It is worth pointing out that story interpretation is subjective. Each viewer will visualise and extrapolate the individual photographs differently, according to what he thinks he can see. What matters is that the viewer is drawn to analyse the image, to seek a message from within the photograph. That’s what makes the photograph powerful. Successful art has the ability to generate emotion. The photographer’s job is not necessarily to convey his original intention of the image to the viewer, but rather to stimulate the imagination of the viewer to feel some sort of intellectual or emotional reaction, depending on each person’s own individual interpretation.

For example, when looking at a nude female photograph, women will usually look for a different message than men. I tend to look for the overall message of the photograph first, examine the emotion that it generates in me. I’m not really looking for the erotic thrill of seeing a naked chick, I don’t look at details, I’m searching for the esoteric, the spiritual message within (assuming there is one.) A man might see that too of course, but you’ll appreciate that a man is more likely to experience an erotic reaction to a photograph of a nude, than a heterosexual woman would.



Rich thinks this is all codswallop. He says he doesn’t do stories. As you all know he favours fine-art figure studies, which he says, tell no story. He reckons that photographs don’t have to tell a story to be classified as artistic. It is enough to capture what is really there. A story is nice, but not always required. He says his own photographic motivations are to bring out the best in a woman, “to make her look the best she can possibly be.” Thus, he says, no story is present in a figure study, and nor is any “inner message” necessary for this genre to be classified as artistic.

I think he is wrong. IMO a figure study does tell a story, but it is a tale of light and shadow and mood, a story of an ordinary woman being elevated to something more ethereal. She looks perfect, unattainable, almost unearthly. The art nude photograph reflects not just the ordinary woman within, it combines the physical and the celestial, reality and fiction, through the technique of light, shadow, composition and posing. The ordinary woman becomes “something greater” than what she usually feels, she becomes just a little bit like a goddess. On looking at her finished images, a model will often say, “Wow! I never knew I could look like that. I’m really beautiful.” And THAT itself is the story. If the only depth and wisdom that art-nude photography achieves is to make a woman realise her inner beauty, then that’s enough story for me.

So, unlike Rich, I believe that successful photographs do tell a story, and that’s why we crave looking at them so much. Just as a child is addicted to listening to stories, we grownups also continue to resemble the children we once were. We grow older but we do not change. We always crave the next story, and the next. They are as essential to our survival as food. Whether these stories are via the written word, through illustrations or through photographs, it doesn’t matter, just as long as we are fed.

The photographer is therefore so much more than someone who merely captures and records reality. He is our master storyteller, the creator of magic, and the artist who has power over our imagination.

Cigarettes: Death-Sticks or Creative Tools?

“There are two kinds of people - smokers and non-smokers. Decide which one you are, and be that.”
Robin Williams, Dead Again

I have never smoked a cigarette. No, not once, in all my forty-one years. Smoking related ills killed both my parents and I am married to a passionate anti-smoking campaigner. I have experienced the harm nicotine can do. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s a killer. Nevertheless, I can fully understand why folks smoke, and I am pro-choice. Unlike Rich (who thinks that the smoking ban in public places is the best thing ever to happen in the UK) I actually believe that the ability to choose one’s own fate is a fundamental human right.

My mother-in-law (a breast cancer survivor) has smoked like a chimney all her life. She will never give up. “If you take away my right to smoke, then you might as well shoot me,” she says. A passionate advocate of the right to choose, she is married to a very talented painter who has produced some of his finest work with cigarette in one hand and paintbrush in the other. He is the typical stereotypical rebel artist – he rises at the crack of dawn to smoke and paint, in the silence and stillness of the early morning. It is his favourite time of day.

I know many artists who can’t do without nicotine. They use smoking as a muse to create. It relaxes them as a glass of good Pinot Noir might do to me. Contemplating life, grazing on different ideas, the artist uses the ritual of smoking to explore his imagination, as a tool to enhance his creativity.

The journalist Jonathan Jones observed that the more disreputable smoking has become, the more artists are drawn to it. Smokers have a certain “devil may care” attitude about them, a disregard for consequence. Even though they are of course aware that heavy smoking may well kill them one day, they deride scientific evidence and make light of the distant possibility of death. They believe in living for the moment and ignore the physical consequences (although they are certainly aware of them.) Stubborn libertarians to the last, they want to decide their own fate. Death under their own terms. Under these circumstances the cigarette is more than nicotine addiction, it is an emblem of mortality. A symbol of freedom. An act of defiance.

I can’t help but admire that in some way. Although the glamorous image of the cultured sophisticated smoker has long gone, the rebellious image of the lone smoking artist remains. What Rich perceives as incomprehensible defiance of scientific evidence, I see as spirited rebellion against the do-gooders, against those that dictate how people should live their lives. Do-gooders will never be associated with artistic creativity. Artists and photographers who smoke are the very essence of the James Dean rebel. They go their own way. They are attracted to smoking precisely because they are celebrating their individuality, their creativity and their culture.

To the artist who has smoked all his life, the cigarette is as essential equipment as his paintbrush or camera to his creative process. Take away his equipment, and you maim not only his ability to produce art, but part of the person within. It’s not that nicotine is essential to produce great photographs or paintings, but smoking is so much more than just a drug or an addiction. The smoking ritual is a fundamental part of the person. Ban the freedom to choose, and you lose something from both the individual and his culture.

As my mother-in-law says, “So what if it kills me? It’s who I am. It’s my choice.”



Rich would never photograph someone smoking (and he really disapproves of this blog post) so I’ve featured instead the infamous and haunting photograph of Violetta by Helmut Newton.

Humour: The Universal Language

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and the highest form of insult.

You might be surprised to learn this, but after I’ve written a post, I sometimes change it to be more…erm…politically correct for the benefit of our American readers. Sometimes I don’t always succeed of course (and that would be the more offensive posts) but I really do try to be nice. Mostly.

IMO, some degree of language modification is necessary when interacting with other cultures. As part of my day job, I exchange emails with distributors and customers from all over the world, of all nationalities. I’ve discovered a lot about different cultures in that time, and have learned (the hard way) that tact is an essential component of effective communication. I have to “un-British” my language, put on a different persona, in order to make the foreign clients feel warm and fuzzy (and thus spend money with us.) Above all I have to remain serious and avoid being humorous. No doubt this attitude carries over onto the blog to a large extent.

Some commenters, who email me off blog when I relax and am more "British," find they are dealing with someone rather different from the bloggie Lin persona. I am sharper of wit, blunter, more direct, and most importantly, my sense of humour can be very difficult to get used to. Misunderstandings are rife. Australians often think I am nuts and ignore me, and Americans in particular seem to find my sense of humour rather strange, and often think they have offended me when they haven’t, or worse, I offend them when I’m not intending to.

Me and my big mouth get me into no end of trouble

To me at least, a culture is defined by its sense of humour, as is the individual. And we are all very different, believe me. Did anyone see the comedy The Office? It was a leading UK T.V. comedy over here. Unfortunately the British version was incomprehensible to Americans, who found it strange and offensive, and it had to be completely re-scripted and re-shot to reflect a modified US sense of humour before it aired in the States.

From the outside Britons are apparently viewed as eccentric and funny. A Mori poll in 2004 asked people from Chicago what they thought of the British. They very tactfully described our “unique British sense of humour” and thought we were overly polite and reserved too (clearly they haven’t met me after my third glass of wine.) It’s true that Britons can seem a bit strange (traditional national pastimes vary from national cheese-rolling competitions to the World Bog Snorkelling Championships, and here in Norfolk we race snails for fun) but I have to say that you shouldn’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Snail racing can get pretty intense and bloody, but it’s surprising how much fun it can be.

Also, our nation’s obsession with sarcasm and self-deprecation can be baffling to the Yanks. Researchers have apparently found that this is genetic rather than cultural in origin. Brits love cruel comedy at the expense of others (e.g. Fawlty Towers, Blackadder and so forth.) Americans don’t get this. I often get comments from distressed readers who tell me to stop running myself down on-blog. They just don’t understand that I do this as a way of cracking a joke. To the American, it is impolite, incomprehensible and insensitive.

Our US brothers and sisters seem to have a much more “positive sense of humour” – they look on the bright side of life, their humour is often zanier and wittier than the British equivalent (Frasier for example was very clever and funny at times, and I love Scrubs.) On the other hand, most Britons think that the Americans can’t do irony. Most Americans simply don’t understand it, as it’s not native to their educational and social upbringing (I’m treading on dangerous ground here, and I suspect I’m causing offense to some of you. Here’s the difference in language – I’m actually teasing you all.)

My personal (very British) sense of humour is mainly based around arrogant sarcasm - think Dr Cox from Scrubs for an American equivalent, or my beloved Canadian David Hewlett (*sigh*) My photographic American friends get a VERY rapid induction off-blog into being teased mercilessly via email (poor souls) whereas on-blog I tend to squash that sense of humour so as to retain the American political correctness which is usually required. Yanks are THE most overly emotional and easily offended people on earth. It can be VERY exhausting, I can tell you that much. Chill out for heaven’s sake!

As Aristophanes understood, the point of humour is to hold a mirror to the world, to reveal deeper motivations and expose the absurdity of both life and fate. I think both nations do this very well, although both think they are better at humour than each other. In actual fact, Yanks and Brits perceive life differently. The same jokes can be funny in both countries, but only if they are re-written for the relevant cultural and historical context.

My own opinion? Give me the dry, grumpy British wit anytime. A good sense of humour is being able to laugh at oneself.

The British Photographer always takes his work terribly seriously

Twenty

Caution: Mushy post alert. Avoid. Avoid.

Well it’s been twenty long and torturous years (Kidding! Kidding! I promise!)

Of course Rich and I didn’t do the traditional “love, honour and obey” English wedding vows (can you ever imagine me obeying any man?) He promised me the adventure of my life, and that our time together would never be boring. I promised to stay with him for as long as the adventure lasted. So far we’ve both kept our promises.

How on earth did we end up here?

Still mushy

When we reach twenty-five, we’ve vowed to “do a Chip” and go get married again in Vegas. I’m gonna wear my red latex cat-suit and embarrass the kids.

Happy Anniversary Wook :-)

(Thus named after Chewy because he pulls people’s arms and legs out when he gets angry with them. Yes, he really does. Not exactly conducive to good customer relations.)