Limbo lower now

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Honey doing the limbo

I’ve decided to stop modelling to “higher.” The whipped cream shot in my previous post will be the last you see of my “bits” for a long while. Cries of relief all round, I’m sure.

Don’t get me wrong, these shots were a lot of fun to create, and mucking around in the studio with Rich at weekends with a bottle of wine was immensely relaxing for both of us. And the images were kindly received which was a pleasant ego boost for me too (not that I needed it - my ego is supersized already), but…there is always a butt…

I didn’t shoot pussy shots to get comments, I didn’t shoot them to shock, or arouse others or be “out there” and I didn’t shoot them because I thought they were art either (I have no idea if they qualify as art and frankly I don’t care.) I didn’t need adulation (although that is always nice, but I’d much have my ego stroked for my writing thanks, not my groin.) So why did I shoot nothing but erotica for the best part of a year? Did this photographic genre reflect my personality? To some extent yes, I do have a saucy British side, and I can be incredibly rude (naughty-rude rather than verbally offensive although no doubt I’m guilty of that too) but horny porny Lin is not really who I am (unless you get me completely plastered in which case all bets are off and BTW I totally deny everything.)

If I’m being completely honest with myself, the real reason I shot erotica was a psychological reaction against my cancer. It was a rebellion, a way of fighting it. Porn was my weapon. Exposing my ass (literally) to my disease was my way of saying “fuck you Big C, I’m going to beat this, and there’s nothing anyone or anybody (especially my crappy body) can do to stop me.”

But then I got nuked and took six months off modelling. Incapacitated in hospital, and then at home, I had nothing to occupy my mind and so I started to study photography and the reasons behind it, and consequently I changed. I’m not saying anything as corny as “I grew”, but I did discover new and exciting reasons why photographs evolved, why photographers thought as they did and the reasons behind the creation of their art.

My lifelong obsession, my raison d'être if you like, has always been a fascination with people, who they are and why they think as they do. Nude photography (and indeed all photography) is fundamentally about people. A photograph (good or bad) will tell you way more about the creator of the photograph than it ever will about what the photographer thinks he is showing you. You just need to know how to look. My six months off modelling, which was largely spent reading about photography, really gave me a good kick up the ass and made me re-evaluate who I was and what my priorities were. It taught me as much about myself as it did about the photographers I was studying, probably more. And most importantly, along the way I learned to really see a photograph. And that new understanding fundamentally changed the entire way I looked at the world. It changed Lin, the person.

Do I regret that explicit modelling phase, most of the results of which you’ve never seen and now probably never will? Not for one moment. For one, the making of them will make good stories. Secondly they were fun, as well as a way of losing myself and forgetting the psychological and physical crap I was going through. Thirdly they tested the limits of what I was prepared to show of myself to the world, and if you don’t experience your limits, explore that side of yourself, how are you ever going to know what makes you tick?

But I don’t need that weapon any more. I don’t need to fight my disease because I’ve accepted it as part of me. I’ll always love modelling (particularly the wackier stuff) and I’m still going to do it because helping to create photos (note I’m not using the word “art”) is a lot of fun, and it makes Rich and I happy to spend time together mucking around with a camera. But my desire to model no longer goes deeper than that, I’m afraid. Fun should be enough of a motivation, at least for me.

For me personally there are more important things to do than use my dodgy modelling as therapy (although it does work) and there’s much more to life than showing my hairy old crotch to the world. I don’t have time to be ill. I have more important things to do: Living (one day at a time), breathing (in and out), writing (little and often) and most importantly, loving. I’m rather good at that last one, even if I do say so myself.

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You can never have too much Honey.

Titillation Tabloids

Sorry, I should have posted this a couple of days ago, but I got sidetracked drooling over new kitchen colour schemes. Gotta get my priorities right you know.

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Yet another from the thrashingly good Serious Hat Series

In case anyone out there missed it (unlikely), F1 boss Max Mosley won a legal action against a Sunday newspaper over claims that an orgy he took part in had Nazi overtones.

Mosley never denied that the sado-masochistic sex session with five prostitutes occurred, but he denied that it had a Nazi theme. The paper's story was based on a secret video and photographs from one of the women who took part in the sex session. The High Court found that the paper had indeed breached his privacy, that Mosley showed no evidence of Nazi leanings, and that it was just a typical S&M session between consenting adults. The judge said privacy should be expected for “consensual sexual activities albeit unconventional." Hurrah, justice for Mosley! Paparazzi journalism caused his wife and children major humiliation and wrecked their lives. As he said, "It also shows that that they had no right to go into private premises and record adults engaged in activities which are no-one's business but those of the people concerned."

When is it in the public interest to reveal a person’s private details, regardless of how famous they are? Are kiss and tell stories wrong? When does investigative journalism cross the line into invasion of privacy? Should paparazzi journalism be banned? Is it even proper journalism to begin with?

The press argues that such stories are in the “public interest” of course. Paparazzi journalism is big money. The British media is a fetid cesspit of amorality, manufactured and maintained by the readership, but this area of photography and reportage is the only part of the magazine and newspaper world that actually makes a profit. The western world has an insatiable curiosity for reading the sordid details about the personal habits (be it diet, sex, whatever) of their fave celebs. I’m no exception here. I find Edward Weston’s rather adventurous love life as interesting as his photographs, which means I’m no better than the rest of the general population in my desire to know the seedy personal details of my icons. What does that say about me? About any of us?

Most celebrities concede that some invasion of privacy, especially from paparazzi photographers, is inevitable. Sometimes it can even be good marketing. Darryn Lyons, founder of celebrity photo agency Big Pictures (the biggest in the UK with £7m a year turnover) never feels guilty for his paparazzi job. He says “If celebrities didn’t have my machine behind them, who would go watch their movies? Anyway, unless you want to be in a dungeon getting whipped, you shouldn’t be worried by us.” I guess Mosley was right to worry then.

As a highly dodgy model who would have a great deal to lose if her raunchier photographs were ever “named and shamed” by the popular press, I’m afraid I’m firmly on the side of privacy. I turn down magazine interviews if asked (two last year from women’s magazines) and I’m militant about protecting my personal i.d., for my family’s sake if not my own. Of course there’s a limit to the level of privacy one can achieve with a public blog and one’s ass plastered all over the blogosphere, but I do what I can.

Every individual has the right to a personal life. A man should be able to be whipped in private if that’s what floats his boat, without fear of reprisal. It’s the whole essence of what privacy is about. If Mr Mosley wants to waste his money on hookers then it is entirely up to him and none of our business. Some skeletons should just be allowed to stay locked in the closet.

Journalism should respect the principles of integrity and decency, not just think about lining wallets. The UK media would do well to report real news, rather than concentrate on the modern cult of fame and celebrities, and we would do well to mind our own business.

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Whipped Cream?

Insomniacs Anonymous

“Sleeplessness is a desert without vegetation or inhabitants”
Jessamyn West.

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This is gonna be a long-assed day. Despite desperate efforts to get back to sleep, I’ve been up at 3.30 am for the last five nights in a row. Insomnia has made me her bitch…again.

Being a long term insomniac and uber-early riser, I haven't really found anything that really helps, other than sleeping pills which only knock me out until 5 a.m. and even then they doesn't always work. I don’t have a problem getting to sleep, but if I awake prematurely (each morning I wake with the dawn), I'm screwed and can’t get back to sleep until exhaustion takes over.

Sleep is as essential to humans as food, air and water. When we don’t get enough of it, our bodies malfunction. Insomnia can be caused by many things: stress, a change in diet, alcohol, smoking and various medical problems. It affects young and old people equally, and whereas it isn’t life threatening, insomnia can be upsetting, exhausting, depressing and if you have it for prolonged periods, it can make you feel like you’re going crazy. As Tom Wolfe rather gruesomely put it, “The feeling of no sleep starts turning the body and the skull into a dried-out husk inside with a sour grease smoke like a tenement fire curdling in the brain pan.” Yep, I know that feeling exactly. (BTW, nice image that quote conjures up, don’t you think?)

My own personal insomnia is caused by an over-sensitivity to circadian rhythms. Basically my incredibly efficient internal body clock automatically detects when it’s dawn and my brain switches into “must get up” mode, not unlike birds I suppose. My youngest son has it too, so presumably this early-rising thing is genetic. We’re often both up at the crack of dawn huddled round tea and hot chocolate, and are wasted and irritable by lunchtime. People in many other parts of the world operate these hours as a matter of course and wake with the sunrise and then go to sleep when it gets dark, but no, that doesn’t fit in with Western society’s habits I’m afraid (unless you’re a farmer) and try as I might, I just can’t seem to reprogram my body to more conventional hours. Of course sometimes what keeps me awake is simple frustration from not being able to fall back asleep, sort of a loop effect. Once you know you’ve got long term insomnia, it’s impossible to get back to sleep because you know you’re not going to.

On the bright side, at least it gives me quiet time to catch up with the blogs and read Susan Sontag (very difficult book, needs peace and quiet) and judging by the time I receive some of your comments at various ungodly hours of the morning, US time, many of you are incredibly early risers too.

I wish I had some sort of profound words to offer you, some scientific advice on how to help us all get some shut-eye, but alas I’ve tried it all, and none of it bloody works, trust me on this. Black-out curtains, warm baths, vitamins, melatonin, herbal tea, herbal tablets, soft music, milky drinks and hiding under a pillow don’t help. Meditation, counting sheep, reading, fantasizing about David Hewlett etc are supposed to help, according to sleep experts, but I find this actually just makes me more awake because it triggers the desire to write. For those that wonder how on earth I come up with blog posts, well now you know.

Anyway, in the interests of my long term sanity, if anyone out there has some foolproof solution to what is a very common problem, please do share…’cos I’m totally and utterly knackered, and I need some sort of solution before I go completely barmy and start tearing my hair out in frustration.

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Alexis, clearly also an insomniac

TIA Everyone!

(Just so you know, that’s “thanks in advance” rather than other commonly used abbreviations “Terrorism Information Awareness,” “Tactical Interface Adapter,” “Tobacco Institute of Australia” or my personal favourite “Tortilla Industry Association.” Don’t say I never teach you anything.)

Mmm…tortillas…yumm…

Experiments In Light

Note to readers: Sincerest apologies but this post is strictly off-limits to anyone called Dave. Go on, shoo! It's for your own good, you know. Please do return to this quality internet publication on Thursday, when the normal Adoradaves Service will be restored. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Stephen Haynes once asked me why Rich never photographed nudes in our garden. As some of you will already know, we have a woodland garden which has been beautifully landscaped by yours truly and looks pretty bloody marvellous, even if I do say so myself. Photographers who have visited here in the past have often declared they would gladly kill to have such a beautiful natural habitat in which to shoot nudes, and they often try to encourage Rich to go forth into the woods and make art. They’re wasting their time of course. I think he’s only ever photographed me in the garden twice, and even then he took his studio lights. Truth be told, Rich doesn’t do nudes ‘n’ nature. So the question you’re no doubt asking is: why does he limit himself in this way?

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One problem is time. In order to create a natural landscape shot, the natural light is either correct for the best shot (time-of-day and weather permitting) or there’s no point in taking it. However Rich works such long hours that he simply doesn’t have time to wait for the lighting conditions to be right, and so he prefers his studio where the lighting conditions are always perfect because he creates them. This may change with my purchase of an off-camera flash for his birthday, and I may yet be able to drag him outdoors, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. One off-camera flash is no substitute for the vast light show with which he usually operates, and let’s be honest here, for Rich photography really is all about the lighting, so much so that the subject (very nice though she is) is pretty much secondary.

Rich is a control junkie, it’s his nature, and so he maintains strict (almost obsessive) control over all aspects of the shoot. He doesn’t let the model free-form and then run off a series of shots hoping that one of them will be perfect. Rather he shoots carefully, precisely, and thus each shot takes ages to set up. His style is not that dissimilar to Edward Weston in that he photographs by carefully recreating a preconceived image in his head and spends ages moving the model ever-so-slightly in order to get the correct shot, even if this means shooting less photographs per shoot than other photographers seem to. Each shot must be as close to perfect as he can get it before he will press the shutter. Because he originally trained as a physicist, his thought-patterns are very precise and ordered. His photographic style therefore reflects the way he thinks and the way he creates his art. Each shot is a controlled experiment in light, a recreation of the picture in his head.

Secondly there is also the matter of personal taste. Rich does love capturing a beautiful landscape, but (and I would like to state categorically that I do not agree with this) he likes the viewer to be able to drink in the beauty of a scene without the distraction of a naked woman in it. He feels that if he photographed a nude in our beautiful woodland, for example, the focus would be on the nude. She would be the focal point of the image and the landscape would be secondary, a background, whereas Rich feels that the scene itself should be primary in a landscape shot. One of his favourite expressions is “Why ruin a perfectly good landscape by sticking a nude in it?” Incidentally, this is also deliberately designed to irritate both me and his favourite nude photographers who shoot outdoors (dry British sense of humour you see) so don’t rise to the bait, folks.

To Rich, nudes and landscapes are two different genres. For him, they don’t mix. The beauty of the nude form, another example of the wondrous talents of Mother Nature, is best reflected under controlled conditions so that the fusion of light and form create an art-piece in itself, without distractions like a background scene. The blank setting of a studio creates a psychological distance and removes the requirement for a background story. The only story which matters is the light itself as it caresses the perfect form. Nothing more is necessary. No emotion, no deep meaning, nothing more complicated than the beauty of light on flesh. Such images seem to resist psychological interpretation and yet the sensuality of the light itself does reflect a certain depth in the same way that Weston’s pepper wasn’t just a pepper because Weston’s use of light transformed it into so much more.

Rich seeks the mastery of light one day, to bend that light to his will and thus create beauty. To him, this is the essence of what his art is about. This may sometimes seem to others to be a rather narrow interpretation of the wonders of Mother Nature, but who are we to argue with a photographer’s creative vision?

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Images are of Alexis Summers, posing very elegantly on our pouffe cushion.

Back In The Saddle

“Photography is about looking at someone, watching the way they move, seeing who they really are. Of course if it makes the wife happy too, then that’s definitely an added bonus.”
R.J.B.

As many of you know, I’ve been feeling decidedly fat, frazzled and ugly for the past five months and I’ve been avoiding the camera like the plague. But after much gnashing of teeth and vehement protests on my part, Rich finally dragged me back to our happy place (and that would be the studio) for our first proper shoot since I was nuked.

“Trust me,” he said. “You’re beautiful. Trust me to show how I really see you.”

I’m glad he did, because I really love this shot. No wonder we chix adore photographers so much.

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It’s good to be back.

Happy Birthday Wook, and thank you.

The Grass is Always Greener

The UK sucks. We wanna emigrate. The credit crunch is making the British population miserable, the taxes are humungous and there is one surveillance camera for every fourteen people. Did you know that there is currently draft legislation that will result in the recording of every email, phone call and internet search in Britain? The information will be stored on giant server farms at an as-yet-undisclosed location. It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell’s vision of a future where cameras and computers spy on every person’s movements is finally here.

So Canada it is then. Free healthcare and the land is cheap (note that everywhere is cheap compared to the UK) and Canadians are recruiting skilled workers, unfortunately only about 50,000 of them though. My guess is there are about 5 million of us who would like to go. The only problem with Canada, or in fact the US or Australia, is the healthcare issue. In order to qualify for entry, you have to be free of disease, and of course there’s the whole health-insurance issue in the US. What are the chances of me getting a job or health insurance anywhere? A snowball's chance in hell, I suspect. But even assuming we could get past the paperwork and get into the US (our preferred choice), then there is the thorny issue of what would happen to Rich’s photography.

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Some of you may well have noticed that there is a big difference between American and British nude photography. It’s primarily a difference in style, not dissimilar to the difference between American and English interior design. Contemporary American nude photography is…how do I put it?...more arty, more fashion orientated. It features more unique angles, trendy cropping techniques and it is more dramatic and emotional. I would moot that British nude photography is less hip and is actually more traditional in style (fellow British nude photographers, please feel free to send me hate-mail now.) American boobies have a whole different culture than British boobies. I’m not sure our own boobies would comfortably make the leap.

There’s also the effect that emigration has on the photographer’s psyche. Remember my thing about Paul Strand? Well, Strand loved America to distraction. His “Time In New England” reflected his passion for his country and the people he loved. He was compelled to record everything he saw in terms of light, and the resulting portraits and landscapes were masterpieces of illumination. His American photography was the best work he’d ever done, it was his life’s achievement. But in 1950, when he was approaching old-age, the country he loved had changed so much that he could no longer bear to stay, and so he left and emigrated to France. The problem was that his photography never recovered from the move. Because he hadn’t grown up in France he didn’t intimately understand the people, their culture or how they thought and felt, so he always felt excluded, no matter how friendly the locals were. This distance, and the inevitable culture gap, meant that his French work was perceived as being disjointed, sentimental, idealised and lacked the intimacy and insight of the original photographs from his homeland.

So even if by some miracle we bypassed the paperwork and health issues and we finally managed to emigrate, it is my deep suspicion that Rich’s photography would suffer irreparable damage. As Robert Adams observed, photographers are especially vulnerable to dislocation. It is not possible for them to transfer to a new country the fundamental ingredient of their art – their love for their people, culture and way of life.

Rich and I are both British through and through. We love our people and their foibles, their stubborn and repressed intellectual snobbery, their inability to admit when they are wrong. And we are probably rather too fond of the British stiff-upper-lip culture and our class ridden system with all its eccentricities and flaws. It’s the way we think, it’s who we are. Despite the injustices inflicted by the current oppressive regime, how can we bear to leave? And even if we did go, what would happen to our art?

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Images are of American model Clayre McKinnen, photographed in a very British style of course.

Washing Away Greenwash

(Note for readers: Richard has called this "the most boring post you've ever written." Thanks for the encouraging and positive feedback Rich. Actually I'm having a few days off computer stuff in the interests of spending quality summer time with my children by tramping round forests. So, on the basis that anything is better than nothing, here's a worky post. Who knows, some of you might find it interesting. Others may just enjoy the snooze.)

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Greenwash : The term used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service for the purpose of increasing profits, or in order to try and enhance its standing with the general public.

Due to the increasing focus on climate change and global warming there can be no doubt that ensuring a strong ethical culture is of premium importance to companies. The latest research by Deloitte shows that four out of ten consumers will buy more environmentally friendly products this year, so companies want to ensure that their business ethics are sound, and widely publicised too. A business must demonstrate to its consumers that its corporate responsibility isn’t just playing at manipulating its carbon footprint, but that its emphasis and actions regarding protecting the planet are the core focus of the company mission.

Most importantly, those ethics must be genuine. If a company spends millions on advertising its green credentials but also manipulates its statistics to look better, for example if it employs African child labour or exploits local farmers, then those money-motivated practices will be quickly exposed by an ever-vigilant public and the media. In this modern internet age, secrets don’t stay that way for very long. Greenwash is real, and the truth will come out.

So when a company’s reputation is at stake, it is important that all companies analyse their goals and business practices and ensure their policies are rock solid when considering how they use their energy, their ethical trading plans and also their sustainable patterns of consumption. British supermarkets are currently revamping their business ethics and competing for a larger market share of an ever-increasingly environmentally aware general public. If they don’t change to reflect this trend, then their customers will go elsewhere, so it’s important to tow the line, even if it means increasing prices because they have to switch to different suppliers, or reducing their packaging, or even charging for carrier bags (which will be law in the UK next year.) Tesco (the UK equivalent of Walmart) is even carbon-foot-printing its own products. However, because supermarkets are fundamentally cost and profit driven, they will always cut corners and when they do their greenwash is quickly exposed. As John Grant said in his book The Green Marketing Manifesto, "You can't put a lettuce in the window of a butcher's shop and declare that you are now turning vegetarian."

It is a moot point as to whether or not this trend towards social, evironmental and ethical trading is an overly onerous responsibility or a new marketing opportunity, but it is certain that this will be the way forward for future capitalism in the Western World, and one day all companies will operate this way.

Our world is changing. There is no place for eco-cliché in the new corporate world. Advertising spin subsequently exposed as lies will kill a corporate brand stone-dead. Companies should tell the truth, embrace the change, and put ethics and saving the planet at the core of their agenda.

The future of business is green. Just make sure it's real green, not fake.

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Well, I do hope everyone enjoyed my cure for insomnia. If anyone is still conscious after this, please do let me know...

Street and Studio: An Urban History of Photography

Last weekend we had the pleasure of visiting the Tate Modern in London, which featured a huge photographic exhibition of the work of some of the world’s most famous photographers, designed to present “a fascinating history of photographic portraiture taken on the street or in the photographer’s studio, looking at the differences between these two key locations in which photographers work.”

Cecil Beaton (The Soapsuds on the Living Posters Ball, 1928)

It was certainly good to see the development of photography over the last 150 years. Some of the early photographs were astonishing, not for their subject matter, but simply because you could look back and imagine just how old these photos were, and what remarkable photographs they were bearing in mind the primitive cameras that were used then. These photographs weren’t just historical artefacts, they illustrated the men who were heroes of their time, the innovators who were masters of their art. Rich was totally wowed by some of the early Cecil Beaton work, and has been muttering ever since about “the lighting, the lighting.” I was blown away by Paul Strand’s Wall Street for pretty much the same reason, plus I’ve always been a sucker for architectural photography and it was great to see that Strand’s images looked as good in print as they did on the internet (I know a whole lot about Paul Strand…I am a Strand groupie…just as well he’s dead or Rich would have a serious problem.)

Paul Strand Wall Street (1915)

Anyhoo, after I’d finished drooling over Strand, I will admit to preferring some of the more recent work on offer. The best art in the show was unquestionably, one hundred percent Mapplethorpe for the following shot of Lisa Lyon (1982)

Mapplethorpe Lisa Lyon (1982)

…but I was equally wowed by Bert Stern and Garry Winogrand. I really didn’t expect to like Winogrand after everything I’d read about him, but his street portraits were excellent. And anyone who says “Whenever I’ve seen an attractive woman I’ve done my best to photograph her” gets my vote. There were also many photographers whose work I was unfamiliar with whom I loved, and whom I will be studying and you’re all certainly going to hear a whole lot more about in future, such as Marjaana Kella, Pieter Hugo, Jeff Wall etc etc. I guess I generally preferred the contemporary photographers, and those lesser known (to me) wowed me more than the better known ones. Mitra Tabrizian, in particular, I hadn’t heard of before, but certainly dazzled with a stunning surrealist photograph from Beyond the Limits series: surrealist photography at its best.

Mitra Tabrizian, Beyond The Limits (2000)

What a collection! What a comprehensive history of photography! Rich was in his element. The exhibition allowed him to study the work of all his heroes up close and personal, to touch his Gods, to be inspired. He loved it.

Are you bored yet?

Well so was I.

If photography has been my faith for the last few years, then this exhibition caused me to question it. I had one of those “what the fuck am I doing here?” moments. You know, a profound “is it Art?” moment. To be perfectly honest, although there was a lot of great work there, some of my heroes, my icons, left me cold and rotting in the gutter along with the hundreds of other homeless vagrants featured in the exhibition, alone and lost.

Boy was that exhibition depressing. I grant you it was an eclectic collection of photographs from famous (and not so famous) photographers, but at least half of it was collated by numpties. Some of the photographs just didn’t fit together. For example, you had a series of atmospheric moody street photographs and stunning portraits followed up by a photograph of a guy in a gimp suit. Why was that shot there? Presumably for the shock factor, presumably because the organizers had been donated a Mapplethorpe shot and wanted to feature it in there somewhere, anywhere, because it was “Mapplethorpe” (all hail the great one!) but it really ruined the flow of the images. O.K. so I was supposed to compare and contrast street and studio, but honestly, even to a beginner like me, it just didn’t work. In particular, the arangement of photographs in the contemporary section lacked cohesiveness.

I was incredibly, profoundly disappointed by the featured work of several Photographic Greats, even though it is heresy to say so. Some of the work featured by the contemporary Masters was clearly only there because it was done by “a famous photographer” not because the image itself was good art. Avedon’s featured image of “Andy Warhol and Members of the Factory” (1969) was awful, and Juergen Teller’s images disappointed me equally. (Most of you photographers reading this have done much, much better work, trust me on this.) Some of the images featured were just plain bad (even allowing for subjective viewer interpretation and my poor appreciation of composition) and some were simply featured in the wrong place, so the flow of images, the photographic history and the gradual build-up of emotion were broken. The viewer was left irritated and disappointed, rather than enriched.

My 13 year old wannabe-artist son summed it up best after pausing over Helmut Newton’s shot of Catherine Deneuve (1983. So bad that I can’t find it anywhere on the internet to link to.)

“That’s really, truly awful,” he said.

Me: “Cripes! You can’t say that! It’s Helmut Newton!”

“I don’t care who it is. It’s really bad. Just because he has a famous name doesn’t mean it’s a good photograph. Even famous artists screw-up you know.”

From the mouths of babes…

We adjourned next door to tea and Francis Bacon, both of which soothed our troubled brow, and went home feeling much, much better.

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The Millennium Bridge, as viewed from The Tate Modern, with St Pauls Cathedral in the distance

Either something went horribly wrong with that photographic exhibition or I am the one who is a numpty because my innocent, naïve and inexperienced expectations of my icons were much too high, and I should probably just give up photography now and go and study surrealist painting instead. I’m not sure which of my two conclusions is the right one yet. I’ll let you know…

Erotica: The thinking Person’s Porn

Too often, I have found that people label what they find offensive or crass "porn," while anything they find sexy gets the more romantic label of "erotica." One person's pornography is another's erotica!

Sage Vivant

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It’s taken me a whole two years, but I’m finally persuading Rich to dabble in the dark side. He’s finally having a bash at shooting erotica (with models other than me, I mean.) You’ll note that I don’t use the word “porn” because Rich says he doesn’t do porn, and he gets VERY annoyed if I refer to his work as porn, which I do, frequently, because frankly I don’t see much of a difference. What’s in a label? If a photograph turns you on, does it really matter what it’s called?

Well, apparently it does, according to Rich. He says that it’s like looking at the difference between implied nude and real nude – erotica implies the sexual act rather than shows the sexual act. It’s all about getting the balance right between fantasy and reality.

On the other hand I would describe erotica as high-class porn, shot with dramatic lighting and lots of visible emotion and sensuality. It’s sophisticated porn, but with a story, feelings, a psychological element, although the purpose is the same: to get the viewer hot ‘n’ juicy.

By now most of you will be asking, does anybody actually care whether an image is classified as erotica or porn? Well yes, most photographers DO care very much. They want their images to be erotic so that they are perceived by the general public to be photographers not pornographers. It’s all about photographers being concerned with themselves, how they want to be seen and how they see themselves, whereas it should be about what they shoot. Many photographers are too concerned with how they appear to others (they must be thought of as “respectable photographers”) and not enough with using their skills and imaginations to push their boundaries and realise their erotic creative vision. Is it edgy? Can I shoot edgy but not porn? Is it classy? Does it show too much? Not enough? Is it tasteful? And so on…too much worry about the self-image rather than the end-image.

It makes me wonder what would happen if photographers just stopped thinking about their self image for a moment, and let their emotions fly? If they stepped outside their personal comfort zones, indulged their imaginations and see what happens? Personally I would love to see the results. I suspect the photographs produced would be awesome.

Unfortunately there’s no chance of Rich doing that (just yet anyway) as he’s rather shy, and truth be told, he’s taking it slowly because he’s new at this genre and (by his own admission) erotica requires a completely different photographic puzzle to solve. With Rich, it’s forever about lighting above all-else, and he says that’s something he needs to develop over time. It’s easy to do the dramatic single light from the side of course, but trying to induce a more sophisticated emotional mood through light, without crossing the line into porn (which for him is unacceptable) is proving a consuming challenge.

It’s not all about lighting of course. The pose and expression of the model is important, but it’s also critical to think about the story. A successful photograph is about the message above all else. This is where it gets complex because viewers may perceive erotica and porn differently according to their own subjective opinions and personal tastes. In particular, men and women view erotica differently because they think differently. If women get turned on by ideas and more psychological elements of the scene, men are more visual, so the secret is to ensure your story appeals to both. In order to achieve a powerful erotic photograph, all these elements have to come together at just the right time, for that split second, in order to create that image which will push the right emotional buttons of your viewers. Erotica is all about stimulation of the mind rather than the body, and leaving that viewer desperately wanting to see just that little bit more…

One thing is for sure, if photographers stopped obsessing about what is acceptable and tasteful so much, they'd get a lot further with their erotic photography. Ultimately the classification attributed to your photograph is unimportant. What is important is that you stop worrying about what others think of you because all that will do is get in the way of your creative vision.

Let your mind go and your photography will follow.

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Images are of HoneyB of course. Rich isn’t sure if he "crossed the line" into porn with that last shot. Personally I think he worries about lines too much. Just keep shooting, and the rest will take care of itself.

Cropping Conundrums

Apologies if I come across as an idiot newbie in this post, but that’s exactly what I am, so I’m relying on you splendid chaps to put me straight.

It is one of photography’s fundamental truths that most photographs do not appear at their best straight out of a camera. To make your photos look better, they usually require some element of “fiddling” before they’re finished. Now fiddling fascinates me, the photographic type I mean.

Rich reckons I’ve developed a dangerous mental condition known as “cropping obsession.” Alas, no whipping involved, I’m talking about the compositional kind. I’ve been fascinated with composition for a while now, and have been analysing it in excruciating and torturous detail (torturous for Rich, not me, because he has to answer my endless questions) and my life is now lived so much according to The Rule Of Thirds that it’s creeping into everyday life. I’m even placing the focal point of my cakes off centre [birthday candles must never go in the centre of the cake, as this shows lack of imagination and a bland composition. As the primary focal point of the cake, the candles should appear off centre at one of the line intersections, but don’t forget to carefully crop your cake for maximum compositional effect. My kids were not impressed. Their cake was wonky.]

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Anyway, in order to study how best to crop my photographs, I’ve been studying everyone else’s (i.e. yours), and asking Rich to explain why the photographs in question have been cropped in that way. It seems to me that cropping is of critical importance because it controls what the viewer sees. Cropping shifts the focal point of the photograph and thus changes the whole mood and subject of an image in order to convey to the viewer the message you are trying to achieve.

Now I thought good composition was simply a matter of cropping the subject to fill the frame, plus cropping out obvious distractions, and that was pretty much it. But alas it’s not as simple as that. Cropping is an art-form in itself, as important as the compositional rules you follow when you are actually taking the shot. Get the wrong crop, and the photograph is ruined, the message is lost, and what could have been an outstanding piece of art becomes something I look at and think “what exactly is the point?” I guess I simply don’t understand why some of you learned photographers out there decided to crop your photographs that particular way. Although it is perfectly possible (in fact it’s highly likely) that some of the more “arty” of all your cropping techniques which I’ve been moaning about recently are, in fact, correctly cropped and I’m just so darn stupid that I’ve missed the entire message of the photograph.

As to the eternal question “why crop that way?” there appears to be major online debates as to whether you should follow the Rules of Cropping, and indeed, whether or not those very rules exist to start with. As with all aspects of photography, there are times to follow the rules, and times to break them. I just wish I knew what the bloody things were in the first place. I’ve got to learn to follow them first, before I can break them. When is it O.K. to amputate a leg, and why is it acceptable (even preferable sometimes) to chop the top of a model’s head off? Shouldn’t the viewer be able to see the whole head?

So it appears that it’s all subjective (quelle surprise!) You can crop any way you want to make the composition look its best, but what you classify as your “best” is not necessarily what I would have chosen. To put it in terms that a writer like me will understand, cropping is like writing a sentence that's too long. Do you want to edit out a few words without changing the meaning of the sentence? Or do you want to use the very editing process to change the original meaning because removal of certain words results in a completely different story?

Anyway, I’ve now become so lost in my own composition that I’ve become mightily confused by the whole thing, and I’m now getting very cranky. Rich is getting so fed up with me analysing his photographs and suddenly appearing over his shoulder when he’s post-processing pictures, that he now hides when he’s finishing off his work, and last week a model told me that he’d deleted some pictures on camera as “Lin will have a go at me if I’ve chopped part of your arm off.” Oh dear. Clearly I am a Cropping Monster, and my enthusiasm is bordering on scary.

So if anyone else wants to volunteer as guinea pigs (not gerbils) for me to…er...pump them for their secret cropping techniques…all willing victims/advice would be greatly appreciated (by Rich as well as me.)

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To crop or not to crop? That is the question.

Images are of HoneyB. Rich was kind and patient enough to explain the reasons he cropped them this way, largely because I refused to give him any chocolate cake unless he complied. The new Photographic Learning Tool: Photography by Blackmail.

The Gerbils Must Die

Feline aggression can take many forms and be disruptive and dangerous in a household. The most common category of feline aggression is intercat aggression, which is a fear-induced aggression that can result in grievous injury. The best way to calm a severely agitated cat is to put the animal in a darkened room with food, water, and a litter box and leave it there. Some cats may be so agitated that picking them up is dangerous. For those situations, "herding" the cat by using a broom, or throwing a blanket over the cat so it can be lifted is safest.

Feline Agression, Author Debra F. Horwitz, D.V.M.

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Yesterday turned into a bit of a humdinger in the end. Rich had decided (against his better judgment, I might add) to browse Deviant Art. I kept telling him to upload photographs onto the site, but he’d deliberately avoided it thus far, largely because nobody we’ve talked to has had a good word to say about it. Anyway, he decided to browse this quality art-portal and apparently…accidentally-on-purpose…he came across his long-lost Ex, sa Passion Grande, who, so it turned out, appeared to also be a Photographer. O.K. so she’s a crap photographer, but she’s still A PHOTOGRAPHER, and that makes her one step up in the pecking order from me.

Now for all his multiple degrees in science, Rich is really not that bright at all, largely because he made the colossal mistake of telling me he had found her. Now I’m normally a highly rational and even-tempered lady of great understanding and patience (you can stop sniggering, it’s true I tell you and I’ll thump anyone who says otherwise) but I can confess that even me, a genuine living paragon of virtue, can lose her cool sometimes.

Well, I’m not going to go into past history (you’ll be pleased to hear) but suffice to say that I’ve only ever had one genuine enemy in my entire life, and it was this woman. If I was Charis Wilson, then she was Tina Modotti (and we all know what Charis thought about Tina - the revelation is what Charis didn’t say about Edward’s continued feelings for her, rather than what she did.) It may have been twenty years ago, but the whole affair still stings as if it were yesterday. And to find out she’s a photographer, and moreover, she writes a blog…well…you can imagine.

Of course I read her blog….of course I did. And naturally she has many photographs of her life, her home, her stylish self and her cute little pet gerbils. And as you’d expect, she is divorced and looking for Mr Right again. And naturellement she wrote of her history with Rich in rather uncomfortable detail, and of COURSE she has a whole section on her blog devoted to how much she has his first choice and she wishes she had ended up with him, all those years ago, and she got tons of comments supporting her in how it really should have been her rather than me…it was her destiny….blah, blah, blah…Gah! Take me to the nearest pub and leave me there.

Take a tiny bit of advice from me folks…never EVER, EVER read blogs connected with your past relationships. Ever. Jealousy is a vile and insidious emotion. It eats away at your sanity and poisons your soul. It is to be avoided at all costs. And let’s face it, life is too short for wallowing in the past. And besides, Rich had no intention of contacting her, so why did I look? Curiosity really does kill the cat, I can tell you that.

Anyway, realizing what a humungous mistake he had made and by way of consoling his incredibly distraught she-cat who was spitting fire by now, Rich didn’t actually herd me into a darkened room using a broom, nor did he put a blanket over my head before picking me up, but he did supply very large amounts of understanding, hugs and a horribly expensive (but amazing) Chablis, so I do feel somewhat less psychotic…although I’m still harboring an unreasonable desire to introduce those cute little gerbils to my spitting, hissy pussy. (I’m really not a very nice person you know.)

Pets are like their owners. We choose our pets (or our pets choose us) as reflections of our physical and psychological selves. So my gorgeous kitty might look like an ordinary feline version of a placid and docile middle-aged tabby she-cat, but if you really piss her off she’ll turn into a mean and venomous she-devil who will systematically gut your cute furry gerbils, decapitate and skin them, and leave their shiny skulls neatly lined up on your front-door mat for your breakfast.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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Mean-looking-mama cat with loadsa attitude

And to answer the burning question that will doubtless eat away at you unless I confess all…yes there really was a little gift of mice skulls neatly lined up waiting for me when I got up this morning. True kitty love is…

The model today is Lady Tiggs. The first shot is by me (not a good cat portrait but I’m working on it.) The second most excellent photograph is captured by our eminent photographer of the house, and is a vastly superior photograph for so many reasons.

*sigh* I have so very far to go before I become a photographer…

(P.S. No gerbils were harmed during the making of this blog post. Unfortunately the same cannot be said to be true for the mice.)

The Second Dark Age

Look around you and most of what you see will be created either from or using crude oil. Oil is used as a fuel in production, as a base component of plastics, in transportation of good and raw materials. There is no aspect of the western world that is not directly impacted by oil.

It's not difficult to see why. One barrel of oil is the equivalent to 46 gallons of gasoline, with an energy of 6 billion Jules of heat. That's the equivalent of five labourers working 12 hours a day, every day, for a year.

That black stuff is truly a wonderful thing and without it there would not have been the rapid growth of prosperity that powered the 20th century. But, even ignoring the problems of greenhouse gases there is a big problem with oil.

It's running out.

Currently mankind is using about 87 million barrels of oil a day, which is about 10 billion litres and, while there is quite a lot of oil left in the world, we are very close to the limit of the rate at which we can extract it. This peak rate, called 'peak oil', indicates the point at which we can no longer increase supply to meet demand and at which production will actually start to drop. Current estimates for this indicate it will be around 2010.

Think about that. Historically, as the population has grown, and we have found new and wonderful things to do with oil, we have simply pumped more of it out of the ground. More people = more demand = more oil = more prosperity. What happens when we can't pump more oil?

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This is not something the world has had to face before. In the past, as demand increased, pressure was applied to the oil producers and they increased 'production' to satisfy the demand and keep the prices down. But when we reach the peak oil level there is no more slack in the system. Every litre pumped is used. Any disruption is immediate.

As it currently stands any disruption to oil production could well have a severe impact on the way that we in the developed world live, eat, heat our homes, and travel to work. Terrorism is a serious threat. Hurricanes are a serious threat. Accidents are a serious threat. Is it any surprise that Ras Tanura on the Persian Gulf, the largest oil terminal in the world, is defended like a high security military base.

But what of future growth?

Its expected that by 2050 the world will contain nearly 9 billion people. But there will be no extra fuel produced! I would expect that by then fuel will be rationed. But between now and then we are going to see supply drag behind demand by an ever growing margin. Given that 70% of current oil production is used in transport is easy to see that transport and heating fuel prices will simply rise uncontrollably until transport demand falls to a manageable level.

It looks pretty bleak. Most of the western world is based upon rapid road transport of goods, as the fuel prices continue to grow it will cause transport costs to rocket and the price of the good transported to rise in step. As the fuel supply becomes limited the general transport infrastructure used during the growth of the last 50 years will grind to a halt. Commuting to work will simply stop as pay will not be able to keep up with escalating transport costs.

What can be done to solve the problem?

With the main use of oil being in transport, this should be the primary focus of any attempted solution. Several alternatives have been suggested over recent years including bio-fuels, hydrogen and electricity. However, each of these has its problems. Bio-fuels currently use food stocks which results in food shortages and high food prices, Hydrogen from renewable sources has problems with storage and transport, and electricity is usually generated from fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas and has major greenhouse gas implications.

What is needed is for the governments of the developed world to get off their collective asses and begin to fund some serious development of technology and infrastructure to resolve the problems. Market forces are not enough to solve this problem. Only a concerted multi-government action will do this. It will require a concerted effort to rapidly create a new fuel source and make it available globally in a very short timescale. The world's oil infrastructure has been growing since the end of the 19th century; I don't think we can wait another hundred years for market forces to do the job for us.

The time for governments to act is now. Failure to do so may well result in the whole world falling into a new dark age.

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Images are of Ifat.

The Serious Hat

Last month Rich experienced something resembling a minor identity crisis. I blame Scott Church.

This predicament arose as a result of Scott’s London workshop, not because the workshop was bad (in fact it was most excellent) but because when he walked through the door of the Roost, he met himself, many times over. Every other photographer was in his forties, bearded, slightly overweight, wearing a black t-shirt and clutching a Canon 5D. It was like being stuck in that horror movie where there was a room of mirrors and his reflections came alive and talked to him (in the movie the reflections hacked the hero to death, but I am assured there were no axes at said workshop.) However, small wonder the poor chap returned somewhat traumatized.

Now Rich has always hated the very idea of conforming to any normal social stereotype, so an immediate makeover was mandatory. Individual STYLE had to be acquired, and pretty darn sharpish too. A new trendy man-wardrobe was acquired (no I don’t choose his clothes and I hereby disavow all responsibility for his attire), heavy on the leather jacket and tailored shirts I might add. He contemplated shaving his beard. I threatened divorce (I like my men furry, thank you) so he kind of shelved that idea, but then he decided to buy A SERIOUS HAT.

Now Rich has never worn a hat in his life (other than a bright red beanie for two months when he went through a snowboarding phase a couple of years ago, but that ended with a very wet and nasty fall, and the snowboard-plus-beanie were shelved in favour of an obsession with flying very fast, and therein lies a whole different story.) Anyhoo, back to the topic in hand. Well I am ever the supportive and devoted wife, so I put aside my reservations, and embraced The New Nude Photographer II The Sequel, remodeled, upgraded and improved for the new millennium. With The Serious Hat.

Few things define a man as clearly as a hat does. It is the most instantly noticeable thing he wears, and it emphasizes not just who someone is, but who he wants to be. It was therefore imperative that he chose the RIGHT hat. Now Rich is 6 ft 3”. He is not a small man, and any hat added several inches to his height. I suggested a fez (à la BT style) but hell would apparently freeze over before he emulated another photographer. So after several hilarious attempts, and largely because the latest Indiana Jones movie was on at the cinema, he chose a fedora. I refused to have anything to do with it (Harrison Ford is not normally my thang, too much whipping) so his Mum bought him one instead. Unfortunately she was a bit hazy on the concept of what constitutes a quality fedora, so he kinda ended up with a fedora-sorta-bush-hat instead.

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I didn’t quite know what to make of this hat thing, to be honest. Personally I’ve always found men in hats to be somewhat threatening. Freud maintained that when a man put on a hat, he was performing a phallic gesture. James Laver observed that times of extreme male dominance in history coincided with high hats for men. So was this sudden appearance of a hat just another example of Rich exerting his male dominance? After all, a hat goes on top of your brain, and it therefore emphasizes the presence of psychological power. Was this all about testosterone rather than style, and are the two mutually exclusive anyway?

Well, Rich certainly looked startlingly different in his fedora. It was a Borsalino lookalike, naturally (Harrison wore the genuine article, bien sûr, but that was outside mother's budget) and he had that distant, rugged, slightly sleazy look that comes from too much booze, women and adventuring for lost artifacts in far-flung corners of the world. Teamed with khaki trousers and a leather jacket he was a dead-ringer for Indiana Jones, so much so that all three kids took to humming the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme tune VERY LOUDLY whenever he entered the room, and we are now plotting a purchase of a bullwhip for his birthday.

Don’t you feel sorry for the poor chap? Who’d live with us eh? All he wanted to do was to look a little more individualistic, more stylish. And truth be told, he has achieved that certain level of jaunty elegance which goes with wearing a fedora. It’s taken me a while to get used to it, but I finally like it, at least I think I do. Trouble is, I’m not sure whether The Serious Hat changeth the Man, or whether the Man always was The Serious Hat underneath. Either way, it's actually kinda fun to be married to a movie hero.

And at least the models do seem to like it. Time for a new photographic series maybe…Nekkid Chix In My Serious Hat. Hmm…

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Images are of fashion model Iveta, stylishy (and patiently) modeling The Serious Hat.

What Price Your Soul?

How do you decide what price to sell your prints for?

Well, generally you look around at the prices charged by your peers, and you pick a figure not too dissimilar from theirs. If you decide on an aggressive pricing policy, you may decide to charge less than your competitors, so that potential collectors are more tempted to choose yours over theirs. Or you may decide to sell your prints incredibly cheap, on the Ebay-style philosophy that you can bump up the shipping costs and make your profit margin that way. Or…as I have been taught, you always, always price your product over and above your main competitors. A higher price tag means that your art is automatically worth more because it has that aura of upper-market exclusivity. If you make it expensive and glossy, and pimp it as such, then people will want it more because it’s perceived as a luxury item. If you can get someone to (positively) review your piece of art, even better, because that adds even more exclusivity to the piece.

Sounds easy doesn’t it? In fact, you all know this basic stuff already. End of post. Or maybe not, because artists are humans, not autonomous pimping machines. The problem comes when you bring personal feelings into the whole monetary marketing process.

For example, how do you choose which photographs to sell? Collectors generally only buy pieces that they love, so how do you decide which ones are the right ones? After all, you can guarantee that the images your potential client loves will be different from your choice. There are many of Rich’s photographs that I adore, and he won’t even finish because he sees flaws that I don’t. These gorgeous photographs will never see the light of day, and yet I’m sure they’d sell if he would only trust my instincts. But he’s a man of principle, and he won’t finish (let alone sell) anything that doesn’t speak to him, or that he considers less than perfect in his eyes. He is limited by his perfectionism, by his emotions for his art, and like many photographers, he has absolutely no clue as to what price to put on his work.

You make a photograph because you have seen something that is beyond price, a glimpse of something beautiful, true and perfect which can’t be put into words. So it becomes tremendously difficult put a real value on such a glimpse of the infinite, because how do you price truth? You are blinded by your subjective feelings for your art, and yet you nevertheless have to assign a cash value to it. How do you put your personal feelings aside and view your work commercially, objectively and dispassionately?

In my own personal opinion, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of you being able to view your own work objectively, so don’t even try. You could ask the advice of a trusted and experienced photographic friend with commercial experience, who will help you choose the optimum images which are more likely to be commercially viable. However if you don’t have such a person close at hand, you’ll simply have to choose those images you love, and from that shortlist, guess which ones that will sell. Bearing in mind that a photographic artist puts a small piece of his soul into each and every image, you then have to literally put a price on your soul.

For Sale on Ebay: One Selenium Toned Soul on a 16"x20" Silver Gelatin Print, Printed by Artist, a bargain at $100 plus shipping.

Being both an artist and a businessman sucks, huh?!

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HoneyB from this week's shoot. This shot has been described as "a bit too out-there" so I'm guessing it's unlikely to qualify as suitable for print sale status. But Rich loves it, so what the heck, I'm posting it anyway.