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.

l-von-b-08 913

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.

l-von-b-08 774

Full of hot air and not much else

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

Another week off blogging

More parentheses abuse. (Poor little brackets.)

Yet another week when I didn’t write anything profound or useful. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve been writing aplenty. It’s been half term here, and my sons have been at home. The oldest is revising for his entrance exams to senior school, and my other son has been given an exceedingly long and torturous English project on the topic of his choice, which I am apparently required to assist with.

My younger son chose the topic of Mario for his project, comprising the history of Mario, the origins of Mario, life’s profound meaning of Mario, the symbolism in Mario, the inside leg measurement of Mario and so forth. I don't play computer games at all, but I sure know a lot about Mario now. (I really despise the little critter - he ruined my week.)

When I’ve not been engaged in teaching English to a rebellious, stressed-out nine year old or doing tax (zzzz...) I’ve been (in no particular order) : baking birthday cakes for the boys whose birthdays are within 4 days of each other (I only conceive at one time of year, but let’s not go there), wrapping presents, cleaning up decapitated furless mice skulls (my cats have been on a mammoth hunting bender this week), lamenting my loss of hair (it’s falling out bigtime - at this rate I will be doing an Orixx shortly, only I’m twenty years older and thus I won’t look remotely as pretty) and generally trying to stay upright (vertigo rules - not alcohol induced unfortunately.)

Am staying away from the camera, due to very strong resemblance to aforesaid decapitated furless mouse skull (I fear I may crack the lens) and the only thing Rich can photograph that won’t make you (or him) throw up, is my ass.

l-von-b-08 989

So here it is, my ass, I mean. That’s my peony too. Pretty flower, huh? I had to literally glue it to my ass to make it stick. All in the name of Art, of course. Double sided sticky tape really chafes when you rip it off, let me tell you that. Still, it saves money on a Brazilian wax I guess. Yes this photograph is HIGH ART. No I don’t care if you think it is cheap, trite, tacky porn. I really, truly DO NOT care. My ass is my Art. Live with it. (Did I mention that I’ve also metamorphasized into a raving loon this week?)

Anyhoo, if you haven’t left the blog in complete disgust yet, I promise I’ll be back to writing more interesting and profound stuff next week.

(BTW, I have a crush on Paul Strand, notwithstanding the fact that he has shuttled off the mortal coil. Cool photography…way cool. He'd hate my peony, I just know it.)

Art, Attire And Austerity

An economic fashion post. No nudes either. Yikes! Grim stuff.

In case you’ve been wondering what on earth has happened to the blog this past week, I’ve been celebrating a week of economic and artistic doom and gloom. Yes indeedy, recession fever is hitting the UK pretty bad at the moment. Economic statistics are miserable, our Prime Minister is miserable, the unwashed masses are broke and miserable, and most importantly, fellow photographers and artists are universally and extremely broke and miserable.

This nationwide aura of gloom will undoubtedly be reflected in all areas of society and art. Despite the fact that photographers and artists tend to go for the Te audire no possum, musa sapientum fixa est in aure approach (I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear,) nevertheless it’s inevitable that wider economic worries affect artists’ moods. The tendency at the moment is towards dark art (hurrah! My favourite!) and I suspect this sombre trend will be reflected in most areas of art, including writing, painting, photography and even in the world of high fashion and couture. So you might well be feeling colourful and summery now, but having had a peek at the winter fashion collections in Vogue, I can honestly say that doom rules. Severe cocktail dresses, tailored suits, sharp conservative attire, all in varying shades of black (with a teensy bit of white ruffles.) It’s like the catwalks have been taken over by the cast of Ally McBeal. Everyone looks like lawyers or accountants.

sc_workshop 884

Rowena acting all prim and proper for the Winter Collections

Art reflects not just current styles, but also how we feel and what is going on in society. Leatrice Eiseman of the Pantone Color Institute has noticed that when folks become more concerned about the state of the world, they become more conservative in their tastes. She thinks that wearing sharp and stylish black clothing makes people feel more in control, more empowered. This makes sense. As a colour, wearing black shows you are taking life (and your planet) seriously. Black is sober, practical and makes the wearer feel more intellectual. It shows society that you are sensitive to the problems in the world and that you dress accordingly.

The old adage is that if you want to know the imminent economic fate of the world, then look at fashion. Like other artists, fashion designers are the ultimate psychics. It has always been thus. Coco Chanel designed the iconic little black dress just before the 1929 economic crash, the drab punk look evolved just before the 1970’s oil crisis, and the Goth movement (ah, fond memories!) developed just before the 1980’s UK recession and property market crash.

sc_workshop 901

Genuine bona fide Goth model from the Scott Church workshop. No idea who she is, but we call her Elvira

When times get tough, people want clothes which are austere. They want dark colours and classically cut clothes that are going to last several seasons because they won’t have much dosh to throw at their wardrobe. I could be wrong, but I also think this could be a moral reaction to the last ten years of spend, spend, spend. The winter fashion this year may well precede a full-blown consumer backlash due to the proles’ growing revulsion against excess, waste, consumerism and cheap 'n' tacky Chinese imports.

Fashion design, an art-form in itself, is getting sombre on us all. It is a psychological mirror for the masses. Expect both your art and your wardrobe to be very dark indeed this Christmas.

L-von-B 72

Hip fashion goddess, misery guts, and doom merchant to the nude blogging world

Looking on the bright side: For a boring old accountant like myself, after a lifetime of having the fashion sense and style of a hairy warthog, for the first and only time in my life this winter, I can at last realise my dreams and be a trendy fashion icon!

Hurrah! Bean counters rule the world!

Secret Pornographers

Well, it’s finally happened.

After saying we never would, after declaring we were immensely proud of our artistic work, we’ve now called it quits and removed our names from our web site.

From now on Rich will be known by his online nickname Mr Fluffy, and I’ll just be Lin. There goes my potential aspirations as an art writer/critic of nude photographic art, and bye bye Rich making a name for himself in serious figure study photography. Farewell to him ever being featured in the prestigious Photographer’s Gallery in London, or ever getting any sort of exhibition. All that goodwill and reputation built up over the last few years? It’s gone. Erased from our web site and online profiles, just like that.

To all you other models and photographers who use pseudonyms out there, rather than your real names: you were right, we were wrong. Clearly we were just being hopelessly naïve.

Now we’ve sacrificed our artistic pride and our honesty and we’ve gone to ground. Reality bites. Nude photography, no matter how artistic we try to make it, will be our dirty little secret. Sod creative art, from now on we’ll just be dirty photographic pornographers, guy (and girl) with camera, hiding our true nature by day and shooting thrill-seeking-dirty-piccies by night.

The reason?

The latest trend amongst the Hogwarts mummies and daddies, before they let their beloved little darlings come around to play with our sons, is to Google the name of the parents. We are being checked out to make sure we are “suitable” before other kids are being allowed to be friends with ours. Apparently we are very "unsuitable."

Shit.

How do you choose between your kids and your artistic identity?

If we sound bitter, it’s because we are.

L-von-B 410

A highly unsuitable image, which matches my highly unsuitable mood.

The Grain Principle

“Today I want a grainy picture,” I demanded Rich in true prima-donna style, this morning over breakfast.

He shot me an alarmed “Oh God, Lin’s acting psycho” look.

“I don’t do grain,” he said. “You know that. I don’t shoot film anyway.”

“Well, can’t you add it afterwards?” I retorted.

He looked both horrified and rather offended. The very same look which he gave me yesterday when I asked him to scrape up something smelly and unsavoury from the carpet.

I should perhaps now explain that we’re rather opposed on The Grain Principle.

Rich really dislikes grain. Many moons ago, I remember he used a very low grain film and still used to complain bitterly about the lack of detail in the print. When digital came along he was over the moon. He likes pictures to look incredibly smooth and ultra-sharp. He doesn't like noise and grain, and he's passionate about pixels, the more the merrier. He wants the captured image to look the way he sees it with his eyes and he prefers complete control over the photograph. I can understand this. After all, he’s a scientist so naturally he likes exactness, precision and perfection. He says that if you need grain to make the photograph work, then it’s a waste of time. “Grain is not a mood-enhancer. It is an artefact of the chemical process.”

In complete contrast, over time I’ve learned to love grain, and I disagree with Rich in that I really do think it adds mood. A certain look, a certain style. It has a sexy, arty flavour which is unique and rather cool. Rich understands this, but he says it’s just not to his personal taste. He also thinks that the reason the general public like grainy or noisy photos nowadays is because they think the images were shot on film, and somehow this is perceived as being more professional and artistic. With the growth of digital, he believes grain is being marginalized, which is why it is doubly trendy for art and fashion photography (UK Vogue often has so much grain that you can hardly see the clothes, but the images sure look uber-cool.)

With the cessation of Polaroid, Rich now reckons that in five years time, film will only be used by hobbyists and those that have a dedicated interest in shooting film. He tells me that nowadays nearly all the high-end professional photographers shoot digitally. Digital photography is the future. Film and grain are ancient history. You can fight it all you want, but that’s the truth. So why cling to the past?

All this makes for a very persuasive argument over morning coffee of course, but it doesn’t solve my desire for a grainy portrait, no matter how prehistoric the concept may be.

So I look a leaf out of my four year old daughter’s book, and decided to be a diva. “I don't care. I wanna look grainy. I want a photograph, as is, no photoshop at all, just the real me, but grainy.

He gave me a slightly despairing look. “You won’t like it, you know. You’re feeling tired, radiated, really ill. It’s not going to make you look as sexy as you'd like, and then you'll blame me.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to look sexy, I just want a portrait of me as I really am. A snapshot in time, a record of this point in my life. I know it’s going to be un-pretty. And I don’t care if I don’t like it. I’ve just got to do it.”

l-von-b-08 906

So here it is.

He was wrong. I love it.

Yes I know it’s not real grain. It’s post-processed digitally added noise, and it will make all you purist film photographers out there shudder. Nevertheless, I don’t think it came out too badly at all. No fancy studio posing, no sexiness, no Photoshop. Just me on my favourite sofa. It’s who I am. And it’s probably the only photograph you’re ever going to see of my floppy old boobs, so make the most of it.

Standing At the Helm

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

Sheesh.

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

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

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

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

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

Humour: The Universal Language

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The British Photographer always takes his work terribly seriously

Why the fate of the world rests with Ohio

So it’s Hillary for president then.

At least that’s my outside bet. But hey, what do I know?

Well, I’m an accountant, so my reasoning is mainly financial. (Yes money is boring, but I’m boring, so live with it.)

The US is in recession.
Yes, it is.
I’m sorry for all you die-hard optimists, but please let's all just get real for a moment.

The U.S. lost 63,000 non-farm jobs in February, the biggest drop since the start on the Iraq war, and overall, the private sector shed 101,000 private sector jobs in January alone. And there’s no end in sight either. Inflation and the general economy are worsening. When people are broke, they can’t pay their mortgages, which means more pain for banks, who in turn are more reluctant to lend money and when they do, it will be at a higher rate, which in turn means less dollars all round. And as the US stops spending, so the poor starving Chinese citizen will end up losing his job too, as US imports will also decline dramatically over the next year.

The eminent economists Ethan Harris and Jody Clarke predict things will get gradually worse, both inflation and unemployment will continue to rise, despite the Fed continually cutting rates, and the end result will be negative growth by the end of May.

Forget about the war, after all, no-one’s talking much about Iraq any more. All talk is of money and how it affects the average US citizen. In particular, please spare a thought for all those blue collar workers in the depressed US manufacturing heartland (N.Y. Pennsylvania, Ohio and in-between), who are feeling extreme pain in their wallets. Life for them is unrelentingly grim at the moment. Their jobs are being increasingly outsourced to India and Taiwan, and many of them are starting to blame the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for their misery.

Enter into this gloomy scene the immaculately coiffured, blond haired witch, who will make it all disappear with a zap of her magic wand…hurrah for Hillary! She’ll swoosh in on her broomstick to save the day.

Barack lacks economic experience and he's dodged the NAFTA issue completely, but our future Madam Prez Hillary, saviour of the morally upstanding white proletariat worker, has pledged to renegotiate the same treaty that was once championed by her husband. The result? Ohio and the other swing states (once Bush devotees) are now so desperate for change, for hope, they will fall under her evil spell. Muggles beware!

Not convinced? Need another reason?
Well, it is popular knowledge amongst political analysts over here that however Ohio votes, the world follows.

Of course I could be wrong about US politics, and let’s hope I am. But if The Grand Sorceress is indeed ruling the world this time next year, then you can be sure I’ll be blaming everyone in Ohio…



Me, wearing clothes for a change.

How to prove you can never be too old or too stupid

An excruciatingly long and sordid tale of the seedy world of a middle-aged female accountant.

As part of “the top ten things to do to prove to yourself you’re still alive after having brain radiation,” I resolved last week to do something out of character, something outrageous, something that I hadn’t done in a very long time. So I decided to visit a sex shop.

Now the last time I went into a sex shop was 22 years ago. What can I say? I’m a middle-aged boring accountant, for God’s sake. I’m supposed to be repressed. Nice English girls don’t do that sort of thing, what? (Incidentally, I don’t watch porn either. Sorry to burst your bubble folks, but I require something with at least a hint of a plot.)

So anyway, last week on the way back from a particularly torturous Company Tax Update Lecture, I called in at the local sex shop. Once upon a time, before the UK became a totalitarian state, the sex shop used to be in a quaint little stone-clad shop in the centre of town, with pretty net curtains, a charming green wooden door and a bell that “tinged” when you went in. In fact it could just as easily have sold muffins rather than ye olde rubber dildos with pink ribbons and bobbles on. Mmm…bobbles…fond memories…

Anyway…where was I? Oh yes…well nowadays the sex shop has of course been chased out of town by righteous pitchfork-bearing yokels, and has been forced to relocate to a large grey anonymous warehouse on an out-of-town industrial trading estate. It’s now a large grey steel building, with no windows, a dirty tar-macadam parking lot, and the entire thing is surrounded by eight-foot high barbed-wire security fencing, that is patrolled at night by sniffer dogs. Maybe the dogs are there to protect the sex toys – who knows? All I can tell you is that it doesn’t leave you with a warm, romantic feeling driving up to this place. And having your vehicular details recorded by a row of large security cameras doesn’t do much for the inner erotic glow either.

Now I can model fine art nude, I can show my nakedness to thousands of folks on the internet without a second thought, but I have NEVER felt so self-conscious as I did that evening, as I parked up and walked into the store. A single, middle-aged professional female dressed head-to-foot in tasteful faux-fur, with fifteen video cameras following my every movement. Big Brother was watching this strange old accountant with deep fascination.

Our stylish heroine travelling incognito

Once inside, I was so petrified with fright that it took a while to actually get my bearings. The place was vast. Grey walls, red carpet, one or two old guys wandering around aimlessly. It was very dark, and I couldn’t see the other side. As far as I could tell, the place was mostly full of dirty movies. Rows and rows of porn stretching down the aisles as far as the eyes could see under the yellowy dim light (which was no doubt intended to both simulate a sultry and erotic feel for customers, as well as saving electricity, as this highest quality establishment was clearly run on a shoestring.)

I edged nervously round a huge dangly rubber mask, which appeared to have a giant black nine-inch penis instead of a mouth, and approached the shop counter where the storekeeper was buried behind the financial section of The Times (The Times ? In a porn shop? Surreal.)

“Um, excuse me,” I enquired in a rushed, squeaky kind of voice. "Um…do you have any…um…you know…glassware? I need something for a photographic shoot next week. I’m a model. My husband is the photographer. In fact he’s very well known for fine-art photography. It’s all very tasteful, you know, so I really would appreciate your guidance.”

Of course I was babbling incoherently at this point. Completely shitting myself if we’re being honest. My heart was pounding, I had absolutely no clue what I was saying, and only sheer bloody-minded determination not to be labelled a total wimp was keeping me from turning and running as fast as I possibly could.

The owner of the shop slowly lowered his newspaper and observed me. He looked about my age, very distinguished and intelligent. He looked me up and down slowly and impassively, taking in the Italian fur, the high heels, the briefcase and the beetroot-red blushing face. To his credit, he didn’t react at all. His eyes remained completely expressionless, but I noticed that his lips twitched ever so slightly.

“Glass dildos, end of aisle 3,” he announced in a deep, slightly bemused voice, and then disappeared behind the stock prices again.

Emboldened by the normality of his acceptance, I actually relaxed a little. Maybe this wasn’t so bad? In fact, it might be kind of fun. Hey, maybe middle-aged professional women did this all the time? Maybe my accountancy colleagues popped in here most nights on the way home from work too, after picking up the milk and the ready meals for their partner? Oops dear, better not forget the giant rubber penis mask too.

Aisle 3 was very exciting

Anyhoo, I sashayed down the narrow DVD aisle, knocking aside Bertha’s Big Bulbous Bazookas, Martha’s Mighty Mammaries and Big Bertha III: Revenge of the Mighty Wonga. And then I reached aisle 3. I stopped. My eyes widened. Well, quelle surprise! What an impressive display of plumbing supplies there were! Balls and strange shaped objects for orifices that I never even knew existed. Talk about a rapid education. To a 40+ has-been like me, this was an extremely steep learning curve. I felt rather out of my depth, to be honest. So you’ll appreciate that I was delighted and very relieved to see something I recognised amongst the vast and bewildering display of debauchery, the one NORMAL everyday object amongst all this porno paraphernalia. And it was elegant too.

A large glass bottle-stopper, with a narrow neck and an exquisite blown-glass ball on the end, with a single real goldfish suspended within the glass orb. (Actually it might have been a plastic fish but it certainly looked real enough.) It was laid in a beautiful blue velvet and silk cushioned box. I was enchanted. I experienced that well-known inner erotic glow of woman’s “must-have-shopping-lust.”

“Ooh, pretty glassware!” I thought. “That will go nicely in my bottle of chardonnay at home. Perfect for dinner parties. That will certainly impress my guests. Right, that’ll do. I’ve seen all there is to see. I’ve completed my mission. I’m no longer a middle-aged wimp. Now let’s get out of here. FAST.”

So I flung some cash vaguely in the direction of the (by now openly laughing) shopkeeper and fled home at warp speed, still shaking from the adrenalin rush of my success. Once back safe in my home, I needed an urgent drink to calm down, so I uncorked a bottle of our finest chardonnay, and popped little Goldie in the top. A perfect fit. Very snug. My fishie looked gorgeous, tasteful, elegant, shiny.
I toasted my victory over fear, pronounced myself “a survivor” and “truly living life!” and mentally pictured myself showing off my elegant glassware purchase to my yummy mummy pals at our next posh dinner party. Mmm. Truly I was a woman of the world.

I wandered into the living-room to show Rich.

“Erm…very pretty…er…you do realise it’s a butt-plug, right?” he said not unkindly, struggling desperately to keep a straight face.

Oh. My. God.

Remind me NEVER EVER to think of myself as intelligent or educated again. Clearly I know nothing.

And yes, of course I’m still using it as a wine stopper.

What kind of girl do you think I am?

A tasteful still-life of ye olde modelle’s elegant hand-blown glassware

The sun has gone to bed and so must I

Do you know I’ve seen that movie twenty-six times? It was my mother’s favourite. My father could never make it through the Nazi occupation at the end of the movie, as he was captured by the Germans during WWII, and the film brought back too many memories. So two thirds of the movie I know off by heart, but I’m distinctly hazy as to what happens after the Salzburg Festival.

Anyway, this inane waffle is simply by way of saying “So long, farewell.”

I’ll be off blog for a while, at the Grand London Shopping and Nuking Trip. I’m apparently visiting at least four hospitals on my travels, one of which is conveniently located next door to the UK’s best foobies clinic (that's "fake boobies" for those unaware of the lingo.) Maybe I can get me some gorgeous humongously large foobies in my lunchtime, inbetween zaps. You know, kill one bit, enhance a couple of others. I have to say, this is an immensely appealing thought. I really could use a new body, as since I embraced Vista a while back, my CPU keeps crashing randomly, I keep leaking memory and parts of me are in serious need of an expensive upgrade.

Richard has bought me a couple of Brooks Jensen books for my birthday, and I’ll be reading those over the next few weeks, along with various sleazy novels. So heaven only knows what sort of blog posts I’ll be churning out when I return.

In the meantime, enjoy yourselves, and I’m leaving you in Rich’s very capable hands.

The future is inevitable The form it takes is not.
Michael Shallis

What better picture to leave you with, other than an unfortunately unforgettable image of my colossal ass. Rich reassures me that it’s just a camera angle trick, and it really doesn’t look as big as this in real life. Husbands are rather good like that. They always know the right time to lie through their teeth.

(R4): Shooting For The Wrong Audience

O.K. Let me first state I am not a photographer. I am but a lowly soon-to-be-ex-model. What do I know about what constitutes art? I am merely one of those 99.9% of the uneducated public out there. I am not one of the photographic elite. I am untrained, ordinary. I am outside The Club, so to speak.

Secondly, has everyone read the editorial of Lenswork magazine this month? If you have received your copy and just skimmed the pretty pictures and then chucked it in the corner, then GO READ IT.
A brilliant piece of philosophical writing about the state of modern fine art photography. (One day when I grow up, I want to be able to write like that.)

Brooks Jensen argues that “too much of photography is about photographers.” He argues that there are too many trite mundane images out there, that “photography is so mechanical that it can seduce us into thinking that mere production (the capture and printing processes) is a creative act.” He makes the very valid point that too much of photography is taken up sweating over the photographic process, the subtleties of the type of paper used, the darkroom process, and for what? To be judged by other photographers, not the general population. Fine Art Photographers in particular shoot for their peers or for specialist collectors, not for the average Joe Bloggs like me who wouldn’t know the difference between different types of fine-art paper if it hit us between the eyes.

Jensen argues that there is little that is truly creative in photography any more, little that inspires and connects with non-artistic viewers. If the average person goes into the photography section of a bookshop, what does he find that really inspires him as Art?

I took up his challenge yesterday, in Norwich’s leading bookshop, and I have to (rather sadly) say that I agree with him. Books on photographic processes, fuzzy images, different bizarre displays of photographic techniques, some pretty landscapes. No obvious signs of outstanding fine art, that’s for sure. No wonder very few folks buy this stuff. I couldn’t find a single book I identified with. Not one that actually leapt off the page, and said “this book will change the way you see the world.” In other words, no real Art. I also went to an exhibition of modern art and photography over Christmas in Norwich’s leading art gallery. Same thing. Some unusual and bizarre stuff to be sure, and some very groovy colourful imagery, but nothing that stirred the soul. Nothing that I could lose myself in, until we reached the collection of old paintings in a corner of the gallery, at which point I came alive and spent way too much time having my mind blown by one of Francis Bacon’s paintings. But alas, the fine art photographs left me cold. Same ol, same ol. Lots of peculiar "arty" technique, but little that had real meaning.

Have photographers got so caught up in the making of photography, and the ease in which it can be displayed online, that they no longer concentrate on the “create” part of photography any more? How do you expect to make your art connect to the public, to connect with a viewer, to really GET THROUGH to your audience and really enrich their lives, if you are largely concerned with your work being judged by other photographers? Do you really think about the emotions stirred up by the image, or are you just concentrating on technique and the editorial process? When is a nude photograph just another B+W nude, and when does it really show beauty, meaning, soul?

Jensen says that “photography is not about light, as is so often proposed, but rather about life.”

So forget about competing with your peers for who produces the better picture, the better technique. Get on with the process of shooting photographic art that will generate emotion, that will give life to your art, and enrich the lives of the ordinary person like me who sees it.

And let me leave you with one last question from Jensen (particularly relevant for me at the moment also):

“If you knew you only had one day left to live, what [art] would you want to leave behind?”



Rich reckons he’d leave this one.
From this we conclude that his life's message to mankind is therefore located in my ass.

Good news for a change!

Off-topic post. Do excuse me. Normal arty-topic-posting to be resumed shortly.

Rich is pretty stressed out today. He’s putting out a software release, dealing with lots of customers at once, and both his parents. Plus he is also babysitting a tiny pink teddy bear with a plastic bottle of milk. If he doesn’t feed the bear, it glows bright red, cries pitifully like a baby and gets increasingly loud until you shove a bottle in its mouth. The bear does this at completely random moments throughout the day (and has the useful side-effect of scaring the customers too.)

When you feed the bear, it gurgles happily and goes back to sleep. This is apparently to teach little girls the responsibilities of having babies. Unfortunately my three year old is so stressed out by this bear, that she has absolved herself of all responsibility and given it to her Dad to look after. I am not allowed to look after the bear, only her Dad. Rich hates the bear. The customers hate the bear. My daughter hates the bear. I guess that the manufacturer’s goal of cutting the teenage pregnancy rate by “real baby simulation” is definitely successful, but boy do they start young nowadays.

Life seems pretty surreal at certain times, and this is one of them.

On the other hand, I am deliriously happy! (Or just delirious, I’m not completely sure which.) And I’m especially happy to report that I was wrong. I take it all back.

I love the UK National Health Service.

Not only am I NOT leaking brain fluid after all (that constant worry kind of ruined Christmas, but the tests eventually came back negative) but the local funding for my super-dooper-nuke-it-and-see-radiation came back almost straight away, and now I’m pencilled in for treatment in early February, PLUS I’ve found out that my treatment is not at el-grotty hospital that I went to before Christmas, but instead the NHS are paying for it to be done at a privately funded very posh hospital (not too far from Harrods, very handy if I get bored.) Yee-ha! I am so happy I could burst right now. I LOVE FREE HEALTHCARE!!! They came through in the end! I’ve never been so glad to be wrong. I insist you all move to the U.K. immediately.

Combined with the fact that other nice things are happening (hubby not only fixed his poorly computer, but also bought me a new point-and-shoot camera, a Fuji FinePix S5800 to cheer me up, and…highlight of my Christmas….David Hewlett actually grew a beard….did I mention I have a thing about beards?), I am actually tentatively daring to hope that 2008 might be a much better year than the last one!?!



I don't think this actually counts as a trophy shot, but some poor deluded souls have actually asked to see what we look like "normally" (whatever that is.) Please note Rich doesn't grab the boobs of all his models, only the ones he sleeps with.

See what I have to put up with?!

Paranoia: its just life

When Lin wrote her post on lighting yesterday, she said that it would probably cause a bit of a stir. It sure did.

The point that she was trying to make was that many photographers have their own unique "look" which often encompasses a particular lighting style, a personal signature if you will. She argued that others who create a direct copy of the original photographer's image with the same lighting and maybe an element or two's difference, are merely acting as photocopiers. She thought this was plagarism, and that it was wrong.

The responses seem to indicate that people think that I should accept the situation, stop being paranoid and learn some lighting. Ouch.

Let me put this to you. Is it really O.K. to see a shot you like posted to a blog or a portfolio site, sit down and work out the lighting, find a model, and shoot the same picture, with the same lighting and a similar pose, post it the following day as being yours, and then sell it and make money from it? It happens all the time, and I don't know of any photographer who likes it, unless they are one of the photocopiers.

The problem is that at one time the photographers were innovators, they had a style, be it posing or a lighting style, and for a while it would be their own style, unique to them. There were very few of them and photography was an expensive job, so the styles moved slowly. Now in the days of the internet, there are millions of photographers, they have the money to buy the kit and the time to study the pictures and work out how they were done, but they don't have the imagination to be an artist, so they copy what they see. Because there are more photocopiers than innovators, the value of innovation has been lost and now the majority, even those who should know better, think that this photocopying is normal and acceptable.

It's just another example of the moral bankruptcy of the modern world.

People think its O.K:

To download free music, music companies make too much money, sod the artist,
To download free films, the studios are money grabbers,
To download the text of a new book, its over priced,

It's O.K. to rip off any damn thing you like, if you can.

Moral bankruptcy.

Read it again.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.



Lin, from yesterday.

Property Porn

I don’t know about in the States, but the primary topic of conversation at dinner parties (or in fact at any gathering in the UK lasting longer than ten minutes) is the housing market.

The British are completely obsessed with property prices, even more than the weather. Of course, like the US, we are headed for a house-price crash in about a year‘s time, so everyone is thinking about selling their house and downsizing before the shit really hits the fan.

So Rich and I are tentatively looking for a new abode. Although we live in a beautiful spot, there are a number of reasons we need to move. Closer to our kids’ school would be perfect, but a frighteningly expensive option (house pieces double in and around the city, and we need to decrease our mortgage, not the opposite.) Closer to our favourite coffee shop would be pretty good too (high priority when considering moving.) But the primary reason for relocation is now the photography. As Art slowly and insidiously wheedles its way into our daily lives, we NEED more creative space.

Because we live in the middle of nowhere, renting bigger studio space is not an option, nor is outdoor shooting unless you’re both brave and foolish (Big Brother is watching everywhere.) So we are challenged with moving somewhere cheaper, but still handy for the train (kids go to school by rail), and with a larger day-job office and studio.

This is rapidly becoming Mission Impossible, and I am spending every spare waking moment on property search web sites or scouring local newspapers for potential nekkid-chick-pads in which my dear Mr Fluffy can explore his …um …art. Because my other yummy mummy friends are also on the property hunt, we ladies talk about houses constantly, to the exclusion of all else.

I am completely obsessed of course, and am driving Rich utterly crazy with my studio lust. Many young women eye up dishy young men when they pass them in the car. I eye up dishy-looking commercial buildings. Sadly, I’ve never been known to salivate over young, pert male buttocks, but instead I drool over old abandoned barns, big factory buildings, revolting run-down farmhouses with wrecked outbuildings. Anything I can possibly fantasise about converting into shooting space. There’s nothing that makes my pulse quicken and my meter rise like the glimpse of a provocative and tantalising ye-olde-warehouse. Who cares about the looks? It’s the personality of my lover that counts. He has to be really big, with room for me to expand into him, dress him up, play with him, fill him up with my wildest longings.

Yes, I’m still talking about houses. Definitely NOT about the hunky young, curly-haired Orlando Bloom look-alike who works at the local bank and keeps asking me if there‘s anything he can do for me. (Tip for young men: Never EVER ask a randy middle-aged nude model if there’s anything you can do to her, unless you want to wind up very, VERY scared.)

But no, I can definitely resist Orlando, just not the forlorn, unloved and wrecked old barn I’ve fallen for with its door hanging off, and a Christmas tree on the side. Damn, he’s cute. And he’d be so gorgeously satisfying to toy with and explore to his deepest depths. Ah! Sweet desire! If only I had the money!

Alas, houses are sexier than men. Ask any middle aged woman with a crazy gleam in her eye, and I’ll bet you next month’s wages it’s a house project which has put that sparkle there, not her sexy young bank clerk (bless his cotton socks.)

Of course I realise that the perfect studio is a mirage - a sexual utopia which isn’t real, but exists only in my wildest fantasies. But I don’t give a hoot. I am addicted. I must have my prize, or perish in the attempt. The nature of addiction is that the sad old fool carries on lusting, regardless of the consequences.

So you middle-aged guys just carry on shooting young nekkid chix who have no interest in real-estate whatsoever. Just leave us old laydeez to our online property porn.



Let me introduce you to my latest desire, the Object of My Obsession.

It would make a brilliant studio - it just needs a little TLC and a new snazzy studio name which really sums up what our photography is all about.

A name such as……

The Cult of the Black Madonna

A Black Madonna or Black Virgin is a statue or painting of Mary, mother of Jesus, in which she is depicted with dark or black skin.

My fascination with black Madonna statues first began when I was a teenager travelling around Europe on a school trip. As soon as I clapped eyes on the beautiful statue at Rocamadour, I was fascinated, and by the time we had travelled on to Montserrat, I was totally lost to a lifelong passion.



These statues pop up all over the world, from Spain to the UK to Tenerife to Guadalupe. All originated hundreds of years earlier (usually from mysterious or unknown artists), and were usually carved from either wood or stone, and almost always dark brown or black.

Why black? Well, perhaps because of the wood-type (ebony), but also because white is the symbol of innocence and purity, and this is not what these statues are about. They are about fertility, passion, POWER. They are amazing art. They are not mere statues, they are icons. Some of them pre-date Christianity of course, and are attributed to pagan worship of the earth goddess, mother-force, Isis, and so forth, but were subsequently adopted by Catholics so as to mould non-Christian worship to their own ends.

Many people believe these statues (and paintings) have divine or magical powers, and they queue up to pray to them and worship them. Despite the teachings of the Catholic church that “thou shalt not worship false gods,” (actually that quote might have been from Stargate, I forget) and that faith only comes from within, not from worshipping inanimate objects, nevertheless many people travel on pilgrimages from all over the world to worship these sacred icons, to ask for miracles. And sometimes their fervent prayers get answered too. Of course, the religious reason for this is that “your faith has made you whole,” rather than the statue or painting has special miraculous powers, but no-one can deny that strange unexplained miracles do occur with some frequency. The sick are healed. Infertile women suddenly get pregnant, people with dire personal problems get their problems suddenly solved, that kind of thing.

If any of you have spent any significant time in quiet contemplation with one of these statues or paintings, then my guess is you will know that these icons do exude a definite “something.“ You can feel it. A connection with the "divine feminine" perhaps? A subconscious recognition of the power of “woman?”

If you are still reading this, you are no doubt asking, “What does this have to do with photographing naked women?”

Well, it strikes me that the photography of naked women is a subconcious attempt by modern artists to tap into that same power. The artistic medium may be different, but the goals are the same.

Yes of course men like looking at young, nekkid chix. It’s hardwired into their genes. They are guys, after all. They are motivated at a basic subconscious level to reproduce, and hence they are drawn to photograph young, fertile, beautiful women.

But for the art-nude photographer in particular, it’s not just about following his balls. It’s about creating something else. He is driven to create something greater than just a snapshot of a pretty girl. Art-nude photography isn’t about that. The photographer is compelled to create something MORE. He wants to create Art, more specifically to show the power and perfection of the woman. In its truest form, art-nude photography is not about identifying with the model personally. It’s about beauty, form, perfection of the female who can be worshipped, adored and fantasised about.

Is anyone else spotting the parallels here?

Men are compelled to photograph naked women because nude photography is just another form of worship of the raw power of woman, what used to be called "the Goddess" in old religion. This applies to the painter and the sculptor too. Men don’t realise it (nor would they admit to it), but it is their way of tapping into the divine, getting closer to the feminine power, the archetypal "great mother" who presides not only over fertility, but over life and death.

Of course, as an experienced nude model, photographs of me also clearly exude the divine power of the fertile goddess (although I’m old, I do believe I have a few eggs left, so technically speaking my images still qualify - although I am most definitely not a virgin.) So if anyone wants to worship this photograph, please be aware that it is available for the performance of miracles as a highly exclusive and limited 11x14 print for $50 (plus shipping), for one week only.



(Kidding, honestly. About the prints, not the miracles. We don‘t do prints because the printer is kaput. But my ass has definitely been known to perform the odd miracle on occasion.)

An excess of SPAM

Alas no Friday rantathon today, as Rich is away on business. But when the boss is away, the minions do play, so as he isn't here to stop me, I'm going to indulge myself with a dodgy post. Apologies. Normal service will be restored shortly.


Some readers may have noticed that we’ve been sneaking in the occasional dodgy picture. This has happened for a reason.

About three months ago, my comfy-bear-zone, my inner moral judgment meter, simply vanished. I woke up one day and it was gone. Poof! Suddenly I had no discernable artistic morals. Poor Rich didn’t know what the hell had happened - suddenly his repressed and staid wife had turned into a model who was champing at the bit to explore her new boundaries. A model who was eager to tick the “higher” box on her modeling profile. In short…he had woken up to SPAM (Sad Porny Ancient Model.)

Poor Rich! Can you imagine just how strange this must have been to cope with? How challenging? This was the photographer whose personal comfort zones were originally waaay wider than mine. In fact I used to think he had no limits, and that I was significantly holding back his art. But then the roles reversed completely and suddenly. The poor chap didn’t know what hit him. He’s been humouring me so far, but I strongly suspect that nowadays his artistic taste definitions are much narrower than mine.

I’d love to say this epiphany was a result of some sort of higher spiritual awakening, or a sudden enlightenment. I’d love to say I suddenly achieved artistic kundalini. Heck, I thought I could even explain it by calling it a mid-life crisis! But alas it has turned out that it’s simply my trusty tumour, which is squishing the part of my brain that governs moral and artistic judgment.

Wow! Just how cool is that?! Imagine waking up one day and suddenly experiencing permanent removal of all the psychological barriers, all the social conditioning, all the stuff that tells you “nice girls don’t do this sort of thing - especially not middle aged yummy mummies!” But suddenly - my limits of defining nude art are gone! It’s a strange feeling to be sure. And not unpleasant - in fact, since this has happened, my modeling life has been a total hoot !

Now don’t get me wrong - I still think tacky, badly-shot porn is gross, but this is simply a personal judgement of style, not a moral objection. My division between eroticism, porn and “what is art?” has simply disappeared. It’s kind of like having a big light-bulb switch on in your head…suddenly absolutely everything can be classified as art, depending on how well it is shot. Quality rather than content. Of course this has been obvious to most of you for years, and certainly I knew this in theory, but I never really understood it properly until now.

Sure, erotic art is usually black and white, porn is colour, but there’s a heck of a lot more to it than that.
That morning three months ago, in a blinding flash of tumour-induced psychosis, I finally realised that porn, erotic art and “dodgy photography” were all one. I realised that good erotic art is all in the lighting, the angle and (most importantly) the TASTE of the image. I even “got” Mapplethorpe’s penis shots, which previously made me want to puke. Finally I realised what he was trying to say - I recognised the power and message in his work.

What makes those few square inches so off-limits to photography? Why the heck do people look at a close-up shot of a woman’s nether regions and think “ugh, that’s revolting?” It occurred to me that such revulsion to a normal and beautiful body part is simply a result of Western social conditioning. Westerners are simply not allowed to think such body areas are beautiful, or if they do, they’re not allowed to admit it, let alone paint or photograph it. This contrasts significantly with less developed societies, such as certain “undeveloped” tribes, who view the sexual organs as powerful expressions of beauty, the source from whence all life comes. These tribes freely depict sexual imagery in their art. They are surely more enlightened than us, who are repressed by centuries of religious and social bias. If a photographer shoots that sort of image nowadays, he usually dares not show it, for fear of being exiled, rejected, labeled as a pervert. All for choosing to show the power and beauty of sex.

Truly excellent erotic photography is simply a result of clever lighting techniques, how the model is positioned, combined with a good dollop of artistic imagination. Plus there‘s a high level of respect for the model required too. But if the photographer is skilled enough, if he has the vision, and if he has the highest standards of personal taste, those few square inches can be depicted as artistically as any other image adorning the walls of the National Gallery.

So I guess what I’m saying to all you gifted photographers out there is - Pussy Art can be good art too.

So go shoot pussy! Make it tasteful, make it powerful, let it express your inner desires and your vision, as well as reflecting the soul and beauty of the woman. And don’t be afraid to show it either! If people are repulsed by your art, that’s their problem, not yours. It’s simply because they haven’t risen beyond their social conditioning and personal limitations.

And maybe they are a little afraid of it too.



Our resident SPAM muses on her new career with a tasteful piece of elegant hand-blown glass.

(Boy, am I in trouble when he gets home tomorrow!)

Hernia Fetish!

Time to attract all-new pervy readers (since we’ve offended practically everyone, we need to bump up the dramatic headlines a bit to lure people in!)

For a glorious few months earlier this year, we were the Number 1 hit on Google for “Hernia Fetish”.

What can I say? It was my 15 minutes of fame. If I get known for nothing else in my modelling career, I will be forever famous for being the world’s number one horny herniated model!

Yay! I’m a star at last!!!

Incredible isn’t it? Some strange people actually have a genu-ine fetish about hernias…The mind truly boggles! No I’m not going to be disrespectful and mock those that get their juices going via way of looking at bulging, irreducible abdominal sacs (although the temptation is very strong, I admit!)

But for those that have revisited this blog and my gorgeous groin area for a tantalising glimpse of the big juicy strangulated bulbous balloon-hernial-sac…Sorry, all that’s left is a rather unexciting scar. But you’re welcome to see a piccie of me clutching my seductively-named "hernia scar endometrioma", if that’s what floats your boat…




Is anyone getting turned on yet? Or have you all gone to throw-up somewhere else?

Narrow depth of field portraits.

I wanted to try out a new arrangement of studio lighting and try shooting with only the modelling lights turned on, no strobes. This allows for a narrower depth of field as you have to shoot wide open.

I like narrow depth of field portraits as they draw your attention to the focal point of the image, which for a portrait should always be the eyes.

For this experiment I found a willing subject, Lin, Yay she’s back!

So here we go, Lin, shot using modelling lights.
For the gear junkies it was shot with a Canon EOS 5D, EF24-70mm f2.8L@58mm, ISO1600

The first ever picture of me nekkid

What?
Nekkid you say?
But you’re wearing a coat!?!

Well actually it was Rich’s short bomber jacket, and I wasn’t wearing anything else. At all.

It was the middle of the New Forest. It was autumn 1987 and we had been dating for about six months. I was nineteen. I had great breasts and very big "eighties hair." The sex was fabulous.

Dammit, we were on the road to rack and ruin even then.

Good memories…



This was shot…gasp…shock…horror…on film.

Photographic Catharsis

Before I started modelling, I felt about as attractive as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. As many of you know, I have completed the herculean task of twelve years of breastfeeding, which doesn't leave you with the pertest mammaries in the world. I have also had brain cancer, which caused facial paralysis, and I’ve had approximately twelve operations in my life (I stopped counting a while ago). All in all, life has left me battle-scarred and with an extremely low self esteem. Two years ago, I used to hide from everyone if I could, and I rarely went out.

The Docs don’t offer you psychiatric counselling for facial disfigurement in this country, or at least they didn’t seven years ago after my brain tumour operation. My neurosurgeon said “You’re lucky to be alive” and that’s about it. This is supposed to be enough for you. Being atttractive isn’t supposed to be part of the equation.

I have known many other women and men with facial disfigurement caused by brain tumours, whose partners left them as a result of the operation. They simply weren’t beautiful enough. And of course there is the immense psychological scarring that goes with that sort of life trauma, plus all the other physical and mental side effects which I won’t bore you with here (mainly fatigue, mood swings and so forth). Living with a person who has had cancer is challenging to say the least. I am honoured that my partner is still with me, and I am particularly lucky that he chose to take up photography and pick me as his main model.



When Rich first started photographing figure studies, I felt understandably threatened. Feeling like the ugliest woman on the planet made it especially hard when meeting these pretty young models. Initially I felt confused, inadequate, old and ugly. I thought Rich was shooting these women because he found me unattractive and a burden, and he wanted to shoot perfect youth and beauty for a change. I thought I was merely a duty to him, and that he was looking for a real life elsewhere.

And then I realised, over the next year, that in fact he saw me as beautiful and sexy as these gorgeous nineteen year old models. Because I watched him, talked to him, because of what we shared, I gradually learned to see myself through his eyes. Because he photographed me in exactly the same way as those younger women, because he told me how beautiful I was, told me I was a better model than some of them, because he encouraged me to meet and shoot with others (and they in turn didn’t treat me like a freak, just as a normal model when I met them), something amazing happened.

Over time I started to heal. Not physically of course, but psychologically. I felt beautiful again. I learned to hold my head up high and celebrate life. To non-photographic members of the public who continued to react like I was a circus freak, I finally understood how they felt, and I realised that they were not being deliberately cruel, but they were just frightened of the same thing happening to them. They were just scared.

A talented photographer will capture a person’s essence rather than merely a body. He will be interested in the person inside the body. It is the mind that makes the body beautiful. When someone takes their clothes off, they remove everything they hide behind. All the fashionista style and makeup is gone. You are just left with the real person, who often feels psychologically exposed because he or she no longer has a mask to hide behind.

In the hands of a talented and sensitive photographer, this exposure of the raw psyche through the use of nude photography can be used as a healing process. A nude photography session can be very therapeutic, and can massively increase your self-worth. It's a way of purging things inside of you, and helping you find your inner strength.

Finding the courage to make an exhibit of yourself in front of the camera in a safe environment really emphasises your self-awareness and is a liberating experience. The shoot itself and the way you are treated by the photographer is just as important as the finished images, maybe more so.

This type of therapeutic photography helps deal with negative body image, body issues, low self-esteem and lack in self-confidence. Used correctly, it is a healing practice, a way of learning to love yourself and recognise yourself as really beautiful, not despite all your flaws, but because of them.

Naughty Noo-noo

O.K. I’ve really had it with talking about art and art photography.
No more angst. No more of the meaning of life and photography stuff.
In fact, I’m taking a break from photography-speak for a while.

Expect shallow, meaningless writing for the foreseeable future. (Doesn’t mean the photography will be shallow or meaningless though.)

If you want profound photographic writing, please go to Pretty Girl Shooter or Hotel Room Nudes, both of which knock my socks off (writing as well as photography) on a daily basis. Those guys are currently on major “creative burns”, and their writing is getting better and better. Honest, funny, sexy and introspective, I’d marry them both in a heartbeat, if I wasn’t happily married already, or in fact, if either of them liked the idea of marriage in the first place (which I’m fairly sure they don’t!) I’ve always felt men’s brains were incredibly sexy…intelligence is such an aphrodisiac.

As for me, I have decided to live a little instead. Enjoy myself, take a break, do some FUN stuff (for that read “drink too much chardonnay and shoot some dodgy porn” which I probably won’t show, but it’s great fun shooting it nevertheless!)

As for my writing, “Less bullshit, more meaningless drivel”, that’s my motto.

I’ll let Rich’s photography do the talking, which is what this blog is supposed to be all about anyway.




This is from last week’s shoot with the writer and model Roswell Ivory. This was (shock, horror) not a nude shoot. It was, however, immense fun, although the photographs are taking a long time to finish due to day-job and family constraints.

The official title for this photograph is “Incubus”, or just for Roswell, “Naughty Noo-noo”

"It is unavoidable. It is your destiny. You, like your father, are now mine."

The day job hasn’t gone so well in the last month. August is one of our worst months for sales anyway, as most folks are on holiday and email software isn’t top of the “Must Buy Now!” list. So we’ve been definitely edgy and pretty stressed lately. Lack of regular income will do that to you.

So last night we were wondering about the day-job, thinking maybe we should give up doing software, do something else for a living. Plus Rich was wondering the usual kind of angsty stuff, you know, "Is this all that I am. Is there nothing more? What am I meant to do with my life? Is there such a thing as fate and destiny, or is life just all chaos theory, and are we in fact tiny furry creatures living in a locker and worshipping a giant watch?”

Yes we all get moments like this, but unfortunately this was at midnight after I’d done a thirteen hour day, so I really just wanted to go to sleep. So instead of being a good wife and talking about it until 2 a.m., I muttered something soothing (but probably meaningless), said my prayers and promptly went to sleep. What I didn’t tell him was that, before I lost consciousness, I sent out a request to the cosmos : "God, the Universe, Great A'tuin, whatever you are, send us a sign. Tell us what we are meant to be doing with our lives. If there is such a thing as destiny, please let us know unequivocally what we are supposed to be doing? Now Rich doesn’t believe in a Higher Power, so you’d better make it a really GOOD sign. It has to be unambiguous. Send us an email. That should do it. Thank you God. Goodnight.”

Rich has his own religious leanings, but they are so buried in physics, that I don’t remotely understand them. He is a scientist, and he has no concept of simple blind faith. He’s not exactly an atheist, but he does believe God/fate/destiny/the man on the moon are all irrelevant. He thinks most religions are just a way of subduing the masses.

He is used to my wacky faith and is very understanding, and treats me as if I’m some sort of unstable mental patient, to be indulged, tolerated and treated kindly. Clearly he thinks I’m out of my tree, and he’s probably right. But what he can’t deny is that my methods do work. One of the little-known facts about cancer survivors is that they are more in touch with the “great unknown” than other mortals – they just KNOW MORE. After going through that much crap and facing your own mortality, answers to big life-changing decisions now come easier. It’s kind of like having a direct line to The Great Spirit’s pet hawk, or whatever deity or wisdom you believe in. So when I send out my questions to the cosmos, I’m pretty damn sure I’m going to get an answer. It might not be the answer I am looking for, but there’s definitely something out there.

And so it was this time too.

When we got up and checked our business email inboxes today, there was nothing there.
*Sigh* Depressing but predictable.
In fact there was only one email waiting for Rich, in his photography inbox…

“Hi Richard,

I have an adult video shoot that I'm trying to pull together in Norfolk on Saturday afternoon and wondered if you'd have any interest in shooting the stills. If you are interested in discussing details please email me blah, blah, blah…"

XXXmodelling Studios


When I read this, I started laughing and I couldn’t stop.

The universe had spoken….God wants us to shoot porn for a living…

Well at least we know the cosmos has a sense of humour!

However, in the grand scheme of things, whether or not this is a genuine call from the cosmos or just the insane ramblings of a deranged old woman, this actually makes no difference. For every thing that happens to you (reality or illusion, it doesn’t matter), the important thing is how you decide to react to it. Whether or not something is fate or destiny, or just random farts of the cosmos, this is actually irrelevant.

For every occurrence that life throws at you, each perturbation, you can behave like you have no choice, that you are a born loser, that the universe is out to get you. Or you can behave like you have a choice, that you are a winner, and that the universe is neither for you nor against you but is a playground in which almost anything you set your positive mind to doing, can be achieved.

Ultimately, it is you who has the power to decide how to react.

This is your choice, not your destiny.





Alas I'm all out of Star Wars porn shots, so you're going to have to live with this one instead.