Say Cheese

Our four year old daughter is paralytically shy. At home she’s actually a bubbly talkative little kid, but outside the family circle she’s so frightened that she visibly shakes when someone talks to her, and she hides whenever a grown-up tries to engage her in conversation. We’ve tried her in therapy, we’ve been patient, cajoling, resorted to bribery, encouragement, cuddles, you name it. Poor little mite, she’s really tried, but it’s been an uphill battle for several years now. We’ve been at our wits end trying to help her, and we were beginning to despair.

A few weeks ago we finally had a breakthrough. We found a very old camera (135mm film) and we gave it to her, telling her that now she was a real photographer like her daddy. From that moment onwards, she carried it everywhere, and the change in her behaviour has been nothing short of a miracle.

A week ago I took her to an Open Gardens exhibition in a nearby village. There were lots of gardens to visit and hundreds of people, all of whom thought my daughter was incredibly cute (she is) and who wanted to talk to her. Normally she’d have been a basket case after five minutes, but not this time. She had her camera.

She took her role as photographer very seriously. It took hours to tour round the gardens because she had to stop at every interesting flower or garden gargoyle, and I had to wait patiently whilst she snapped away taking photographs. She ran out of film very quickly of course, but that didn’t matter at all. People talked to her, and she didn’t hide. O.K. I’ll admit that she didn’t talk much either, but at least she didn’t run away shrieking. It took her a full ten minutes to photograph a solitary cat, largely because she talked to the cat first, trying to persuade it to “say cheese” for the camera. (The cat purred – the next best thing, I guess.)

So why did photography help her paralysing shyness when all that endless expensive therapy had failed? My guess it was because she was shielded from reality by the camera. She hid behind it, psychologically as well as physically. Talking photographs enabled her to concentrate on something else besides her inability to communicate, plus it allowed her to take possession of the space in which she was insecure. The very activity of taking photographs was soothing to her, and because the camera was between her and the things she was afraid of (an unfamiliar location and strange people), her paralysing fears were appeased. It allowed her to experience a new situation whilst staying in control. She was the mistress of the unknown, and she felt that she was capturing and creating something wonderful.

I have a lot to thank photography for, but I’ve never been quite as grateful for its healing powers as I have been during these last few weeks. I'm sure that my daughter is going to make a very fine photographer one day.

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Squashed

Three things happened yesterday, two good one bad.

Firstly my butt was featured by our Portuguese-Peeking-Butt friends over at CU-CU. This is not big news to you real photographic folks who get featured everywhere all the time, but I’m not a real model and I never get featured anywhere, so this was pretty darn cool for me.

Secondly I got 100% in my Corporate Insolvency exam. Woo hoo! Go me! So if your company is going down the corporate toilet, clearly I am one of the top nekkid asses to advise you on the best way to haul your own butt out of your crap, so to speak (ugh, too much graphic bottom terminology…sorry, I get lost in my ass-metaphors sometimes.)

Lastly, and this bit was not fun, I was picking my daughter up from school, and whilst strapping her into her car seat, another car drove past and cut way too close, smashing into my car and trapping my legs betwixt car door and body. The driver concerned must have known what had happened, because the impact made a very loud crunch and it wrecked my door (and presumably his too), but whoever it was drove off at high speed, and didn’t stop. My first (and hopefully last) hit and run.

My daughter was inside the car, and thankfully was unscathed. I ended up with heavily bruised and bleeding legs, but no bones broken. I’m limping for the foreseeable future, and have since discovered the heady delights of industrial-strength painkillers washed down with copious amounts of alcohol. I can truthfully and deliriously report that rum and tonic is the most excellent anaesthetic, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to admire their own butt whilst no longer feeling their legs.

And really, that’s pretty much all I want to say about yesterday, thank you.

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The British Woman's Friday Night Party Kit

Time to go browse some shoe-porn to cheer myself up. Mmm…randy-rummy-retail-retifism. I feel some new shoes coming on…

Justify My Art

Congratulations if you manage to make it to the end of this marathon epic and stay awake. Verbal diarrhoea or meaningful discussion about photographic art? You decide.

One of the most common accusations in the photographic world is that fine art nude photographers do not produce worthwhile and evolving photography. Many opponents argue that fine art nudes have no place in modern photography, that fine art is cheapened by the inclusion of a naked woman, that it is not “serious photography.”

It is a generally accepted concept in fine art photography (so Brooks Jensen et al. say anyway) that in order to constitute a good photograph, an image should be powerful. It should stimulate some sort of emotional response in the viewer, enlighten him or teach him a new truth. In short the photograph should mean something.

However, the objective of a fine art nude photograph is not necessarily to arouse an erotic reaction in the viewer. The purpose is to idealise and create an unattainable vision of beauty, a goddess, a vision of perfection, captured for one moment in time. An emotional response is not guaranteed. Thus it is argued by fine-art purists that mere admiration and objectification of beauty is insufficient to qualify a photograph as fine art. The purists maintain that fine art nudes are meaningless because they don’t enlighten the viewer nor do they produce a deep emotional response. A b+w nekkid chick isn’t exactly as psychologically profound as Pepper No 30 or Moonlight over Hernandez, now is it?

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Further, it is argued that there are simply too many fine art nude photographers nowadays. If you Google “Fine Art Nudes” there are tens of thousands of hits. Because of the growth of the internet and cheap digital cameras, b+w nudes are considered too overdone, too predictable. There are now so many images out there in cyberspace that they all look the same, and the topic has become boring, trivial and irrelevant. The genre is exhausted.

Lastly, we should consider the motivations of fine art nude photographers. Do nude photographers actually believe in art, or is it just an excuse to be in the same room as a naked woman? Nowadays every middle-aged bloke wants to be a fine art photographer. It allows him to get up close and personal with a naked chick and justify it as Art to his wife. Whether or not this means a photographer is a GWC or a fine art photographer is a moot point. Some guys don’t actually want to have sex with a woman, they just want to be in the same room and worship the perfect unattainable female from a distance. They want to create that image of Venus in every model they shoot, to bring out the inner Goddess in each woman. Does this make the photographer a GWC or an artist? Is the classification of whether or not a photographer qualifies as a proper fine art photographer simply a matter of whether he is technically any good at lighting and composition? Can the lowly GWC be a fine-art photographer if he is skilled enough, and do his motivations actually matter?

Moreover, if a photographer concentrates exclusively on shooting the female nude, doesn’t this result in variations on the same theme over and over again? Sure the lighting and model may vary, but the message is the same throughout. Every model is the same goddess, just with different skin. Is the photographer who repeats himself over and over again actually achieving anything? If he is conveying an emotional message that women are divine and unattainable, then O.K. what happens once he has done that? Now what? Sure the photographer has to develop his lighting and technique, and he becomes a better photographer, but that is a technical exercise. How does the message of his photography evolve? How can he continue doing the same thing for years and years without going completely nuts?

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Now before you all go and throw your Hasselblads into the nearest swamp, I want to tell you a story told to Rich by a well respected nude photographer whom he met recently.

The photographer concerned used to be in the armed forces when he was younger. Because he had some photographic training, he was allocated the terrible task of photographing and cataloguing the dead bodies for identification. Now personally I can’t imagine a worse assignment for a photographer. The level of horror and carnage that he was exposed to must have been unimaginable. The photographer didn’t go into the gory details, but clearly the experience had scarred him emotionally for life. Anyway, when the photographer returned home from his assignment, he resigned his commission and although he remained a photographer, he vowed to only ever photograph what was beautiful and good in the world. For the rest of his life. And what could possibly represent beauty, goodness and purity more than a naked woman?

As Ansel Adams said, “it is just as important to bring people the evidence of beauty of the world of nature and of man as it is to give them a document of ugliness, squalor, and despair.”

Ultimately nudes are like a beautiful landscape, where the subject is flesh rather than trees or a rock. Just as you can never grow tired of shooting different breathtaking landscapes, the beauty and infinite variety of the nude form can never become overdone or monotonous. It is the goal of the photographer to discover that unique individual spark within each woman, and if he succeeds, if only for a second, then that single moment captured by the camera is surely the essence of what photography is all about.

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I thought we'd have a Fine-Ass theme this time (as opposed to Fine-Art...oh never mind...)

The Private Dancers

"I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money, I'll do what you want me to do.
I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money, and any old music will do."

As we gradually shoot with more and more models, we are increasingly coming across models who approach Rich for a shoot, but who want to know what is going to happen to their images.

Now this is an entirely understandable question, and I approve entirely. Every model should ask it. We are only too happy to explain that the finished images will be used for prints, and will be displayed on our web site and this blog. I also make sure I send them an advance copy of the model release, so we can go through any questions they might have before the shoot and I can make sure that they are happy and comfortable working with us. This is important because our model release protects not only the photographer, but the model too. Plus, with newer models in particular, some are understandably rather nervous and need a little reassurance that Rich is a legitimate and honourable photographer, and that I’m not a jealous axe-murdering wife (only when the moon is full, in case you’re wondering.)

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But the strangest thing is starting to happen. We are increasingly coming across models who are initially keen to shoot with Rich, and they want to be paid handsomely for it too, but they stipulate up front that the images are not to be made public at any time. In essence, these models do not want to sign a model release, and they want the photos only to be seen by the photographer and no-one else, in case they are recognised. “Shooting for the photographer’s private portfolio” it’s called. In other words, there is a growing industry niche for models who will only shoot with GWC’s (That’s Guys With Cameras for new readers.) When Rich gently explains that a model release must also be signed, they demand loadsa extra cash. When I politely explain that the images are to be published on our blog and possibly elsewhere in the future, they run screaming for the hills.

To some extent, you can understand the attractions of shooting only for GWC’s. The advantages are that models get paid very well, they know exactly what is going to happen to their photographs, they don’t have to sign any legal documents (and thus the photographer is therefore guaranteed unable to publish or use the photos for commercial purposes) and they don’t have to worry that their own families or day-job employers might find out about their little cash-making enterprise on the side. Anonymity is assured.

These models are not professionals (although I suppose it depends on your definition of “professional”) nor do they want to shoot with professionals. The fact that some guy is tossing off over photographs of them nekkid, doesn’t phase these women at all. They prefer it. The audience is one, not thousands. Not every model wants fame. Not every model does it for art. Sometimes it really is just for the money.

I’m not sure of an appropriate label for this type of model. Rich has some ideas, but they’re not that polite I’m afraid, so I’m just going with “private dancer” from one of my all-time favourite Tina Turner hits.

As for us, sometimes life would be a lot easier if we were simple pervs and we just did photography to get horny. For some reason some folks find that easier to comprehend than the concept of photographic art.

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Alexis Summers, a completely professional model, and a joy to work with.

A Penetrating Photographic Experience

Sorry I’ve been off blog. I’ve been busy with medical stuff and spent an afternoon at the hospital on Tuesday waiting for one of my head checkups. This involved an excruciatingly boring two and a half hour wait with a small four-year-old child in tow, during which I had nothing to read other than waiting-room garbage because I’d left Susan Sontag at home. So I was reduced to reading wedding brochures (harrowing) and catholic society newsletter catalogues (unbelievably harrowing) and teddy-bear stories (not as bad as catholic newsletters and twice as profound) and I was soooooo bored that I accidentally-on-purpose overdosed on at least 3 cappuccino’s and achieved that sort of giggly, strung-out, drunken high that results from milky-caffeine overdose. So I was feeling distinctly queasy and floaty by the time I was summoned to meet the neurosurgeon.

Well it turned out that I had a new neurosurgeon who perchance bore a startling resemblance to the luscious Matthew Mcconaughey. Now I was mightily pleased by this new and exciting medical development, as my previous surgeon (otherwise known as God) was distinctly old and droopy, although he was mind-bogglingly clever, but you can’t fancy a God for his brain alone, and heaven knows I deserved a bit of hot 'n' hunky medical eye-candy after everything I’d been through. So now I had the all-new-upgraded-younger-sooper-dooper-brain-surgeon. Good looks, charm and incredible intelligence. Yee-har! My ship had definitely come in.

“Good afternoon, Mrs B. How are you feeling?” he enquired in a deep, upper-class, plummy British accent.

I visibly melted. I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, and my knees turned to jelly. Actually that might have been due to excess caffeine, but I didn’t really care by that point because I was feeling exceedingly strange.

“Mmmm…I feel…really really good…”I purred, gazing into those beautiful, penetrating blue eyes. In fact I felt bloody awful, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.

“Well that’s excellent news. I hear you had a rather rough time of it in London. I’m ever so sorry about that, but you look very well considering. I’m afraid I need to examine you, so please would you mind removing your top layer of clothing so I can check the back of your neck?”

“That’s no problem Doctor, although I usually charge £30 per hour for this you know.”

“What ?”

“Oh nothing, sorry, I’m a bit strung out this afternoon. It's been a long wait…”

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He looked a bit boggled but proceeded to gently probe the back of my neck, looking for lumps no doubt. Now the back of my neck is one of my all-time-overly-sensitive erogenous zones, and having Dr Matt stroke the back of your neck is a treat that can only be imagined in the wildest dreams of middle-aged-old-ladies like myself who really don’t get out very much. I felt even more warm and twice as fuzzy. Parts of me really began to…er…glow…

“Hmm…I can definitely feel something,” he said.

“Me too. Me too…”

“What?”

“Oh nothing. Gosh, did I think out loud? Sorry…er…I do have a brain tumour, you know…”

“Hmm…Well…I…er…do apologise but I need to probe you a little deeper. It will involve a more penetrating examination, I’m afraid.”

“Woo hoo! It must be Christmas!” I thought.

“Pardon? Are you quite sure you’re feeling O.K. Mrs B? Now, hold still a moment whilst I stick this camera up your nose…hold steady...steady now…this will only hurt a bit.”

“Well Doctor I must admit no-one’s ever taken a photo of the inside of my nose before…you really are the most thorough....gahh! Argle! Zat-hurtssalot!”

He’d stuck a tiny camera and a light up my nose. My eyes were watering like mad and bulging out of their sockets. I opened my mouth and light came out. Now I knew what it felt like to be possessed. My passion drooped significantly. It’s difficult to have a warm fuzzy feeling in your nether regions with a long thick rubber tube shoved up your nose. Not the type of photographic experience that makes me juicy, if you know what I mean.

“Hmm…it’s a bit tight in here…can’t…quite…see…down your throat ...say ‘hey!’”

“Hay.”

“No, no, I want to go deeper. Much, much, deeper inside…Say it like you really mean it…'heeyyyy’…”

“Hayyyyyyouch!”

“All finished! You look fine to me. Well done! Off you go Mrs B. See you at Christmas!”

Eyes streaming, snot dripping from my nose and my ardent passion completely extinguished, I fled, vowing under my breath never to let a camera inside me again.

“Mama, why did that bad man put that big thing up your nose?” said my daughter, who had been watching intently and silently throughout. “I don’t like that man. I want my Dada. He doesn’t put big things in my Mama's nose. I love my Dada. He makes me feel better.”

“Me too, sweetie, me too.”

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Don't try this at home folks

(Alas I don't have any camera-up-the-nose photos available I'm afraid, as models don't tend to like that very much, but big kudos to Roswell Ivory for this very brave shot.)

The Art of Seuss

There isn’t a person reading this who won’t be familiar with the work of Dr Seuss. My kids adore him, all three of them can recite The Cat in the Hat by heart, and my daughter is completely obsessed with Green Eggs and Ham.

Theodor Seuss Geisel is famous for his children’s stories and illustrations, and arguably he has done more to fire young imaginations than any other author. During his lifetime he wrote 46 books, which sold over 200 million copies. He was also a political cartoonist, an advertising illustrator and a documentary filmmaker, but it was his amazing nonsensical children’s books for which he will always be revered. His stories are full of tongue-twisters, made-up vocabulary and word-play, as well as clever pictures.

In the serious and pretentious art world, Dr Seuss wasn’t considered to be a proper artist. This is a mistake. He was actually a highly imaginative artist, creating some amazing surrealist work during his lifetime. Combine his vivid imagination with a deep understanding of human nature, and you can see profound truths within his crazy, playful paintings. Disguised as nonsense for kids, when examined more closely they reveal a unique artistic vision. During his lifetime, he dabbled in Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, and his images were always bold, colourful and uniquely Seuss. You simply can’t look at his art without feeling uplifted and enlightened.

Not all of his paintings were published, and not all were suitable for children. His rather odd Myopic Woman (see above) demonstrates both surrealism and cubism, and seems positively indecent if you study it closely. (Incidentally Seuss’s wife was crazy about cats, which is why they feature so extensively in his work. As everyone knows, cats are cleverer than humans.)



Gosh Do I Look As Old As That? is based on a character he invented called La Jolla Birdwoman, a “species which functions in its native habitat of luncheons, parties and charity balls.” (From this we conclude that I am, in actual fact, La Jolla Birdwoman, as Seuss clearly has my personality nailed.)



But my favourite ever Seuss character is the bird in Fooling Nobody. An astute insight into an artist’s ego, the message in the painting is clear: No matter how inflated our ego, we’re not fooling anybody. Others can see straight through the image we portray, and in the end, we are better off just being ourselves.

So does Seuss create a pot pourri of nonsense, a “phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions,” or rather does he demonstrate a witty and brilliant insight into human nature? In the end, I am left with the uneasy realisation that Seuss was forever laughing at us all.

Everyone has their price

For anyone who missed all the drama yesterday...

SuicideGirls v. Lithium Picnic Lawsuit Settled

(Thanks to Scott for the link)

So...the question for mankind is:

Did Warner sell out or was it a con?

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Image is of Pirate Maiden

Rock Bottom

A strong language, big smelly-ass post. You have been suitably cautioned.

It’s been a heck of a couple of months. It’s been our busiest time of year, accounting-wise and I’ve been swamped with finance, tax and working fifteen hour days for the last ten weeks or so. Combine this with trying to blog several times a week, continual professional development (accounting/legal lectures and studying), looking after the family, keeping house plus fallout from the full force of Duke Nukem’s mighty ray-gun, and there’s only one result. Burnout.

The docs ordered me to rest. I didn’t make time to follow their orders (I’ve always been a terrible patient.) Now I’m suffering the consequences.

I’ve been to the delightful location of Rock Bottom before, and I can tell you that it's actually rather a fabulous place to be. Very picturesque, rather quiet, and once you’re there, life suddenly becomes very black and white. All the crap falls away, and there’s nothing left except you and the choices you make.

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Too much tax maketh a zombie

But let’s talk about my little photographic world for a moment.

Photographically I’ve not been enjoying myself as much as I should have been. In particular I’ve been trying to follow all the blogs, largely because the Annual Golden Fluffies dictate that we try to regularly read as many nude blogs as possible so that we can fairly assess the best ones out there.

The trouble is that over the course of the last six months, there have been absolutely tons of new blogs springing up. Starting a blog now appears to be a de facto requirement for photographers and models alike. Wannabe a recognised art photographer or model? Start a blog! It’s part of the mandatory marketing package nowadays. And whereas I really applaud the expansion of the art blog community, and I love the fact that it’s growing so fast, it’s simply just not possible for me to keep track of them all on a regular basis. I now read so many, that they are detracting from my main love (actual photographs) and I am in danger of finding the photographic blogosphere...not fun.

So…in that sudden moment of clarity that results from exploring one’s Bottom, I have resolved (in no particular order) to:

1. Stop working so hard. I am switching to strictly working part-time, starting immediately (and since my boss reads this blog he can take this as notice of my reduction in hours!)

2. I am going to let the sodding housework go a bit. Not doing the dusting for three weeks won’t result in the total destruction of life as we know it, and I’m not fucking Superwoman. It can bloody well just stay dusty.

3. I am going to stop reading blogs that stress me out, both economic and photographic. Please believe me that this is nothing personal regarding any of you wonderful bloggers out there, but it’s time my bloggie world contracted rather a lot, for the sake of my own sanity if nothing else. You can safely assume that if I comment on your blog, it’s because you make me happy.

4. I will be reading more of the type of books I love (yes, that means more on the whys of photography I'm afraid, these books are my therapy) and writing more about the the photographic stuff that interests me, even if it's not popular and no-one reads it.

5. I am damn well going to photograph my cat. Oh yes I am, and I am going to try to do it well. (Note: Have tried multiple shoots already, but the model has proved flaky and uncooperative.)

6. Most importantly, I am going to play more. With my family of course, with my friends (both photographic and non-photographic, online and offline, they are incredibly supportive and I am very lucky to have them) and most importantly, with Mr Fluffy.

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Full of hot air and not much else

So here’s to arriving at my bottom. Now the only way is up.

The Parable Of The Art Photographer

(Very vaguely inspired by an old Jewish story I heard many moons ago.)

A model was chatting to an art nude photographer friend of hers in a local coffee shop.

“Why is it that most of the good art nude photographers are always broke?” she asked. “In fact I don’t know any who actually make decent money from shooting art. Why is that? Are they just lousy businessmen?”

“Here take my camera for a moment,” replied the photographer. “Look through the lens. What do you see?”

“I see…a young couple kissing, a pretty young blonde waitress with big boobs who really should put on a bra, and an ugly wrinkly old guy with a dog who’s eyeing up the waitress.”

“Good!” said the photographer. “You see Life. Now put down the camera, get out your make-up powder compact from your purse. Open it and look in the mirror. What do you see?”

“I see myself.”

“Now you see,” said the photographer. “The lens is made of glass and the mirror is made of glass. You only need to put a little silver at the back of it, and immediately you only see yourself.”

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Iveta

Good Money For Good Teeth

Be nice to your kids...They pick your nursing home!
(Anonymous)

My oldest son admitted this week that he has a crush on a tall, willowy brunette in his class.

“Does she have nice teeth?” I asked.

“Oh Mum, give over about the damn teeth thing, will you?” He said, rolling his eyes in despair.

He’s right of course. I do have a thing about good teeth. Whatever else we economise on in our household budget (most things at the moment) teeth is not one of them. We have a really outstanding and expensive Egyptian dentist (who loves to be chased by raging bulls for fun and who is so incredibly posh that the plasma t.v. in his waiting room is bigger than my car), and my kids’ teeth are literally dazzling in their uniform shiny whiteness. So I expect nothing less from potential girlfriends (yes indeedy, I am going to be the mother-in-law from hell.)

Now it seems that my over-enthusiastic-orthodontic-obsession has been vindicated. Research by Glied and Neidell on The Economic Value of Teeth has found that the quality of your teeth affects how much you earn over your lifetime.

Looking at the earnings of people who grew up drinking different kinds of water, the researchers found that women who had better teeth because they grew up drinking floridated water, got paid 4% more than those with poor teeth. That doesn't sound like much, but over a lifetime, it really adds up.

This extends to other body parts too. Research from the University of Texas has shown that ugly people earn less than beautiful people (explains a lot in my case.) A London Guildhall University survey of 11,000 33-year-olds found that unattractive men earned 15 percent less than those deemed attractive, while plain women earned 11 percent less than their prettier counterparts. Looks triumph intelligence in the salary stakes. This may be morally wrong of course, but it still happens.

Luckily my kids are all very good-looking, so with any luck, by the time we’re old and doddery, they’ll all be earning so much because of their dazzling teeth and phenomenal good looks, that we’ll end up in a plush and opulent nursing home staffed by gorgeous young photogenic nekkid chix (oh and the occasional handsome young gigolo wouldn’t go amiss either.) Hey, I can dream.

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Iveta.

It's Friday, go get (moderately) plastered!

Long, torturous wine post. Not bad considering I know nothing about wine. Anyhoo, if you’re not a wine drinker, you’d best Skip to my Lou, my darlin'

Regular readers will know that I’m rather obsessed with health and living longer (of course I am. Death is a wonderful motivator.) Like all the long lived populations in the world, I’m a very healthy eater (lots of veggies and lean protein), plus I’m also rather fond of the odd tipple or three (I said tipple not nipple - do they have tipples in the States?) In fact it appears that most centenarian populations of the world do include a glass or two of a quality alcoholic beverage as part of their daily diet (Life extensionists look away now, I’m about to indulge in dodgy anecdotal evidence.)

Simply put, moderate amounts of alcohol can be good for you, wine in particular. The long-lived Hunzas of the Afghanistan border are rather partial to Hunza Water, which is a potent wine made from the area’s local grapes, mulberries and apricots. The old people of Sunchang in South Korea swear by their soju, which is a fiery rice spirit. Okinawans (some of the longest lived people on the planet) are devoted to awamori, another potent spirit again made from rice.

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Of course I am unable to get regular supplies of these potentially life-extending beverages, although I do feel it is my duty to sample them whenever possible (I recommend you avoid awamori - it smells a bit like kerosene and tastes like it too.) But I can purchase bottles of healthy red wine which will imbibe me with life-extending nutrients and make me feel warm and fuzzy too.

The bad news is that not all red wine is good for you. In fact, only a very small number of wines will do anything positive for your health. New York Pinot Noir is one of the best because it is high in resveratrol and is supposed to prevent cancer and heart attacks. However, the trouble is you’d have to drink a heck of a lot of it for the resveratrol to do any good, by which time your liver would almost certainly be pickled.

However the latest red wine I’m into is Madiran, which may well prove to be the healthiest wine in the world because it is made with tannat grapes which are high in procyanadins, which improve the lining of your blood vessels and stop your arteries furring up. Real Madiran is made in the Gers region of south-west France, close to the Pyrénées, which has one of the highest proportions of centenarians in Europe, courtesy of a good Mediterranean diet and loadsa wine. Happily, Madiran is fairly inexpensive and tastes pretty yummy, although occasionally (depending on the year) it does have a kick like a mule! Warning: It is also really important to pick a Madiran which is traditionally made. In most wines, modern processing methods remove all health benefits from the grapes and you’re left with cheap plonk which will hasten your heart attack, not prevent it. So choose wisely.

And if you want to know more about the world’s best wines, seek detailed advice from the nude blogging world’s resident wine connoisseur (plus you’ll find a gorgeous nude at the bottom of each and every bottle.)

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Talking of tipples and nipples, here's Lou-Lou.

How Not To Write An Artist’s Statement

For the first time, Rich has been asked for an artist statement from a site that wants to feature his work. Now as you know, Rich is not known for his flowery prose, and he’s certainly not adept at the art of bullshit. He’s interested in telling it like he sees it, from the heart, but after browsing around a great many bio’s and artists’ statements, it appears that Rich’s brief and honest “I shoot nekkid chix 'cos I love boobies” won’t exactly cut it in the serious art world.

He needs something a bit more profound, more descriptive, more eloquent, more waffly, in short he needs to prove that he is a fathomless, mega-deep, serious photographer who’s not remotely interested in ogling naked women, but instead is entirely focused on more noble and ethereal concerns.

Hmm. Where to begin.

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So we started by looking around everyone else’s. Lord almighty, that was an eye-opener. Does anyone ever read artists’ statements anyway? Well, we did, hundreds of them, and I can tell you that it was a hilarious experience. Overall, the word PRETENTIOUS springs to mind. No humour, no honesty, no straight-forward “I photograph because I love it. The End.” Instead almost everyone broke the first and most important rule of writing an artist’s statement: Write your statement in language that anyone can understand.

A few typical examples we came across:

“I seek to expose what is going on deep within the psyche of my subjects, and I use photography as an artistic medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of ourselves and our visual settings.”

“I like to pursue an idea to a conclusion that seems to have an inevitability about it, as though the [photograph] has always existed in an ethereal sense”

“Some artists say their photographs allow them to get closer to nature; mine allow me to get closer to my dreams”

“My primary concern is with the interaction of individuals with each other and with the rest of the cosmos, the interface of self with other.”

“If I can awaken in my subject an inner awareness of emotion or realisation of their true psyche, then I have succeeded in my quest for enlightenment”

Oh please. I mean...seriously...

No-one would believe this stuff in a million years. How can such garbage be taken seriously? O.K. Not all the statements were like that, but many of them were the stuff of fantasies, blatant bullshit riddled with arty-jargon. The strange thing is, that such flowery-arty-mumbo-jumbo appears to be mandatory. The more successful the artist or photographer, the more nonsensical and ethereal is the artist’s statement. Clearly, in order for Rich to prove he is not a GWC he should totally ignore the professional advice and instead spout psychological crap which bears no resemblance to reality, just as long as it sounds cool. Most importantly, it must always sound ARTY, otherwise how else can he possibly be taken seriously as Un Grand Artiste???

So let’s embrace our inner bullshitter and see what happens:

“I wish to breathe fresh air into the musty chateau of the art-nude genre with the quest for inner awakening of the psyche. The subtle nuances captured by my lens illuminate the richness and depth of the complex soul. My passion is to explore the waves of light and darkness as they caress the skin of the perfectly formed embodiment of Aphrodite. Each individual goddess is so beautiful that she commands attention and demands my intense exploration of her innermost depths.”

(Rough translation: Phwoar! Boobie Art Rocks!)

Whaddaya think folks?

Nope. IMO, not nearly deep ‘n’ arty enough. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

More alcohol, we definitely need more alcohol. Clearly all truly great artists’ statements should be written whilst completely out of one’s tree.

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IvoryFlame of course.

Furious about Fuel

Petrol (that’s gas to you Yanks) is set to tip £1.30 a litre this week. That’s approximately $11.70 USD an imperial gallon in US-speak. Gulp!

As my favourite economist Merryn Somerset Webb wrote this week, each litre of petrol sold in the UK is taxed at a flat tax of 53.65 pence per litre (for US currency, that’s $4.83 USD per gallon) which is one of the highest fuel taxes in the world. On top of that, we also pay VAT (sales tax) of 17.5% when we buy fuel, not just on the cost of the aforesaid fuel but on the tax too. So we pay TAX ON TAX! Of course, we are paying out of income which has already been taxed twice (income tax and national insurance, which isn’t insurance at all, it’s just another tax.) So how many times has my tank of fuel been taxed? Three or four? (I’m losing count.)

In the UK, people are cutting down on car trips, and in rural communities such as ours, people can’t afford to heat their homes. That’s O.K. at the moment because it’s summer, but what happens when winter bites? Last month our village was riddled with thieves stealing heating oil from domestic oil tank stores. People are getting desperate.

Fuel costs are affecting folks all over the world, of course. Everyone is suffering, so we’re not alone. And it’s causing food prices to rise too. Our major supermarket Tesco is rationing rice this week - in the U.K.!?! Astounding. But everyone knows things are getting bad. This is not news. This is reality, and as the saying goes, deal with reality or reality will deal with you.

So what does this have to do with photography? Well, the oil situation probably might not affect many of you yet, but for us personally, like many other U.K. photographers who shoot for fun, we have young to feed and we’re perilously low on dosh. Putting it bluntly, we are self-employed, and we fund Fluffies from our spare cash. We do it 'cos we love it, and we adore making art (or trying to make it anyway.) As it stands today, we have two more shoots booked. After that our photographic reserves run out, and there will be no more new nekkid chix gracing this blog unless some kind laydeez decide to lend their beauty for the higher purpose of creating Art. Failing that, you’re stuck with my ass, I’m afraid (the rest of my body has left the building.)

Oil is predicted to top $200 a barrel by Christmas. As Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica says, “We’re completely fragged. Where’s it going to end?”

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More Alexis from a couple of weeks ago.