Justify My Art

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Parable Of The Art Photographer

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I see myself.”

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

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Iveta

The Law of the Jungle

Can freedom ever exist in the world of creative art?

This is not as stupid a question as it sounds. As artists, photographers and writers, we try to produce art because we love it, because something inside us compels us to create a fragment of beauty or meaning that we can give to the world. However conceited it sounds, we want to make our mark, leave part of ourselves out there, create our own legacies. This process of creation is, IMO, a vital act of freedom. We are free to interpret anything and everything from our imagination. If a photographer or writer loses that psychological sense that he is free, then his ego is injured, his work is below standard, and his creativity dries up because he cannot dream. Effectively he has lost his power, not just his mojo.

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Freedom is synonymous with power. When you want to produce a piece of art, you crave the ability, the choice and the freedom to do it. Whether or not you actually have that freedom depends on if you exercise your power over others, or let others have power over you. There’s truth in the old adage that no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

I know a gifted glamour and nude photographer (let’s call him Luca) who prevents himself from producing the best work he can possibly do because he lets others tell them that he isn’t very good. Luca’s photographs are beautiful, but he won’t show his work and even though his friends try to bolster his self-esteem all the time, he still remains convinced that he is a crappy photographer and unworthy of recognition as an artist.

So as a result of listening to the opinion of other rival photographers (who have their own self-interests at heart), then those rivals have taken power over Luca’s self-esteem, resulting in loss of freedom. Luca’s mind is racked by insecurity and self-doubt and he has effectively built his own mental prison driven by his damaged ego. Trapped within his self-made cage, he has practically stopped producing new photographs because he thinks he is useless.

Luca needs to turn the tables on his opponents. He needs to take the power back and exploit the insecurities of his rivals. He should harden his heart, push back, exert his will over others instead of himself being coerced. In the glamour photography jungle, Luca’s potential success is produced not only by self-confidence, but also by toughness, by manipulating other people’s dreams and dictating to them what they should think of him. If Luca learns how to become good at power games, then it won't matter if his current rival is a better photographer than him (which he’s not), because Luca can still be more successful than his rival if he learns how to pimp himself, how to bullshit, how to schmooze and bend others to his will.

If this sounds incredibly cynical of me, then I do apologise. I’m simply calling it the way I see it after spending much too long (obviously) in this entertainment business. The glamour and nude photography world is not a pretty place. It’s a narcissistic cesspool of artistic egos and Luca needs to exploit that to his advantage. He needs to learn to play the Game, because at the moment he is losing. He has to harden his heart and learn to be the predator, not the prey.

The problem is that Luca is too nice. He is a gentleman, a professional, and he believes in mutual respect and freedom. For these reasons, he’s probably much less likely to ever be the outstandingly successful photographer he dreams of being. The Jungle does not care about Luca’s freedom or his dreams. It prefers to eat him.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You make your own rules, you define your own reality, and you can be free but only if you give yourself permission to do so. You have to choose not to be enslaved by others. Take back your own power, believe in yourself, know that you can produce some really great art if you practice long and hard enough, trust your dreams and don’t let other people push you around.

Freedom and dreams are not a natural God-given right. You have to fight for them, every single minute of your life, or the Jungle will chew you up and spit you out.

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All images are of Pirate Maiden

Subject Before Technique

Thanks to all of you for your encouragement regarding my picking up a camera. The verdict is unanimous. I should go for it!

It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Pick up a camera and just start shooting. But I’m not the type of person to do that willy-nilly. I read extensively about photography of course, and the more I read, the more complicated it seems to be. Not the nuts and bolts of taking a shot of course. Any person with any moderate degree of intelligence can learn basic composition, exposure and how to work a camera. But there’s a heck of a difference between learning how to do that, and actually being a real photographer.

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To a complete novice like me, it seems that the first thing you need, before you even contemplate picking up a camera, is to have some idea of what you want to photograph. You can’t go round just photographing random places, objects or people and call yourself an artist. O.K. so many people do, but I’m talking about real photographers. You know, the ones that create photographs that actually mean something.

So my initial opinion is that I have to choose my subject matter first. And according to most learned photographic philosophy books I’ve read, it has to be something that I am both highly interested in and feel passionately about. Bland records of anything and everything don’t produce meaningful images. As photographer David Hurn said, "The photographer must have intense curiosity, not just a passing visual interest, in the theme of the pictures."

Technique, the how of producing a photograph, must come second to the subject matter. Your fascination, enthusiasm and passion for the subject of your choice are what makes a good photograph. O.K. technique is important too, but I propose it is not as important as the way you feel about what you are photographing. If you photograph a random image, which does not at least capture your basic curiosity, then there’s no way you are ever going to produce a meaningful image that will move either you or your viewers. The most vital component of the image is missing. Why is more important than how.

I’d rather look at a poorly composed snapshot taken by a mother of her kids, than a sterile expressionless “arty” Vogue fashion shot any day. The first reflects an intense emotional connection, a visual response to the world, the second is empty.

But that’s just me. And I might be way off track here, so please correct me if you think I’m talking complete nonsense.

Sadly for you lot, I don’t feel remotely curious or passionate about photographing naked women. However I do have an obsession with cats. I’d love to be able to take a decent portrait of my pussies. Not a snapshot. No, I mean a truly meaningful, good kitty portrait. One which pleases me at least, even if it leaves you reaching for the puke bag. (Brooks Jensen thinks cat photos are universally trite. To that I say: Art is subjective. Clearly you are not a cat lover. And BTW your cat probably hates you.)

Thus, due to my passion for all things feline, combined with a reasonable level of intelligence, extensive study of the craft of photography, and then after twenty years hard slog, I can therefore logically conclude with reasonable certainty that if I am still alive in 2028, I will probably be a moderately competent cat photographer.

Yay! Genu-Ine photographic ambition! As Bill Bradley once said, “Ambition is the path of success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.”

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Images are of Clayre McKinnen.

From this discussion we therefore conclude that Rich’s photographic curiosity is aroused by pretty women, preferably nekkid pretty women. Nothing wrong with that. In fact we both share a passion for pussies. The only difference is that mine is furry. (Not mine personally, you understand, the subject pussy, I mean. Although in the interests of political correctness I should state categorically for the record that both bald and furry pussies of both genres are equally welcome, as are partially waxed felines and kitties with landing strips. Don’t wanna offend the photographic subjects, now do we?)

Does A Photograph Have to Tell A Story?

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

The Five Percent

People are sheep.

No this isn’t me being condescending and arrogant again. It’s fact.

A study by Professor Jens Krause of Leeds University Biological Sciences Department found that it takes a minority of just 5 percent of what he calls “informed individuals” to influence a crowd of 200 people. The remaining herd of 95 percent follow the 5 percent without even realising they are doing it.

If you think about it, this is entirely logical because after all, we are animals, and we are therefore genetically programmed to follow general animal herding behaviour. We just don’t realise we are being led. In truth most of us (95 percent to be exact) are happy to play follow-my-leader, regardless of whether or not the leader actually knows what he is doing.

Of course you’re all thinking of politics at this point, and you’d be correct of course. But this same principle applies to everything, including photography. Ed Verosky recently lamented photographers copying a certain photographic style originally devised by Jill Greenberg.

Is this a case of the herd instinct taking over? Is plagiarism (Oh God, I used the “P” word and I vowed I’d never do that again) not actually the fault of those that imitate certain styles or images, but simply a result of genetic programming? Is the animal photographer just following the herd because he can’t help it? Is it actually hardwired instinct for the majority of us to follow the photographic fashion of the time, whether that fashion be a lighting style, a pose, a “look,” an idea, or a combination of these factors?

The herd instinct is programmed into 95% of us. Only 5 percent of you out there are actually naturally born innovators, leaders, creators of unique photographic ideas/styles/images etc. So only 5 percent of you reading this actually find it natural to think outside the box, to create something photographically and artistically unique.

You’ve no idea how much I envy you. The rest of us, the remaining 95%, we are merely programmed to follow where you lead.

If you want to move from the 95 percent to the 5 percent, then you have to fight your herd instinct with very fibre of your being. It’s just so easy to march to the beat of everybody else’s drum. But you can’t. You want to be part of the 5 percent. We all do. So you have to learn to fight your genetics, re-program your artist’s brain to actually THINK differently, practice viewing and imagining things from a different perspective. To paraphrase Brooks Jensen, the next time the flock veers left, try wandering off right just for fun, and seeing where the journey takes you.

Yes it will be difficult, challenging and you might not be sure that the end result actually qualifies as artistic, but whoever said making a decent photograph was easy?

(R6) Creative Vision

In which the writer becomes the photographic blogosphere's Public Enemy No.1.

Franz Rosenzweig defined “creative vision” as “the artist’s plan, the basis for the individual artist’s construction of his individual work.” Nowadays, this term is more generally used to refer to when a photographer has a vision of his unique style in his head. He sees what he wants to shoot before he shoots it, and through the medium of photography, his creative vision is realised in the final image. Voila! True art is born!

Unfortunately this inspirational little phrase has now become so overused in the photographic community that I get very annoyed every time I hear it. Which is often. Very, very often.

“Creative vision” is a modern catch-phrase, a must have accessory. You’re not a real photographer unless you have one. You can justify just about any photograph as “true art” because it reflects the “creative vision” of the photographer. It doesn’t matter if the image in question is messy, chaotic, badly shot or just plain awful, in this modern politically correct art world it isn’t polite or cool to be critical of an image. All images can be defined as “art” because art must be subjective nowadays, and so you have to be nice, you have to see meaning or depth in an image, you have to look for the photographer’s “creative vision.” So what if you secretly don’t understand it? So what if you don’t feel anything for the image? If you don’t like it then you, the viewer, are a bad critic because clearly you don’t understand the artist’s true vision.

Oh please. Why the hell can’t we call a bad photograph, “a bad photograph?” Why should I be the one at fault because I don’t understand you? Isn’t it just remotely possible that your art is just not very good? Why does me being less artistically educated than you, mean that I am missing something about your work?

The truth be told, bad photographers are prevalent in the art world. We all know it. Their work may be trite, amateurish, a load of rubbish, but because the photographer is good at marketing himself, because he’s skilled in the art of bullshit, then he can convince just about anyone that his work is good. The charlatan artist can schmooze you into believing that his creative vision is so subtle, so mysterious, so esoteric that because you don’t understand his work, this actually means that you, the viewer, are the one who is at fault. Clearly you don’t recognise his creative vision as the work of genius that it really is.

What a load of bollocks. But people are taken in by it all the time. I know I used to be. Producing bad art and promoting it as genius is very seductive, but it’s actually fake, a lie, a betrayal of what creative vision actually should be.

I do believe that there is such a concept as “creative vision,” but it is a nebulous concept, not easily translated into words, and even harder to translate into a photograph. And not every photographer has one.

Real creative vision is ordered, disciplined, harmonious, unique to the individual artist, and its beauty is such that it can be translated by the artist into something that can be easily understood by the viewer. Creative vision is constantly evolving, never static, an ongoing quest for knowledge, to paraphrase Cézanne, “a model of steadfast learning and growth, the artist’s value lies not so much in what he can MAKE, but in his capacity to seek and continue to find.”

My personal opinion is that it takes an entire lifetime to discover your real creative vision, because it is all about figuring out your own unique message you are meant to express to the world through your work. And maybe, just maybe, by the time you do discover it, in many years time, you’ll have enough experience, practice and insight to be able to produce the artistic vision of which you alone are truly capable, because you will finally understand yourself.



Introducing IvoryFlame.

The Quest for Knowledge

Hello. My name is Lin, and I’m addicted to studying.

My behaviour is derived from the Master Workaholic, my father, who had two businesses and worked 24/7. He never learned to play. Work absorbed his every waking moment, and as I grew up, I learned the same thing from him. In my case “work” came in the form of study. I studied because I knew nothing else. I was a dedicated student from the age of about nine onwards, and by the age of thirteen I was doing four hours homework a night. I worked and obsessed through many qualifications, two degrees and beyond, and nowadays it's just become a habit, a hobby, a compulsion, who I am. It’s not money that’s the lure, it’s knowledge. I crave it to the exclusion of all else. And I mean ALL.

In our house, it’s well known that Mum doesn’t play computer or other games. Mum works during the day, and she studies for fun. And yes, learning is fun for me as well as an addiction. I’ve realised that I really do love what I do the vast majority of the time. I can't really explain how much of a rush it can all be, and yet how much it can drain and exhaust you as well.

And yet…there’s a nagging doubt that something isn’t quite right with this life-study-work ethic. My kids tell me to “get a life,” they think that learning is a form of work not play, that it’s weird that their mother gets “obsessions” with studying particular subjects, and that the quest to know everything about them absorbs every waking moment. My friends sigh and half-heartedly tell me to teach myself to play, and I’ll kill myself eventually if I keep up this pace forever. And I’d like to be able to take holidays too, and enjoy them (I endure vacations, I do try to enjoy them I promise, but I get so bloody bored lying by the pool, I usually want to shoot myself by the end of day two.)

Culturally, we Britons study all our childhoods, and work very long hours in our adult lives. It is both expected and encouraged to do so. Unfortunately, like alcoholism, workaholism is bad for you. Subjecting your body to that level of stress for many years will definitely have consequences for your body (yup!) It makes people neglect families, relationships and their health, and workaholics are usually in a state of denial about the impact of their behaviour (guilty on every count.)

So what do I do? I don’t want to end up like my father, who retired at 55, but was dead by 57 because his life was suddenly empty without work. I can see my brother (who at 60 is still working 80 hour weeks) going the same way. Even though I know it is bad for me and those around me, changing my behaviour (yes I’ve tried) makes me wholly miserable. I have become my father. I’ve spent a lifetime addicted to the drug “workahol” and I must change before the burning quest for acquiring knowledge eventually wrecks me.

The grand irony is of course, that the answer to life’s ultimate questions, “Is that all that I am? Is there nothing more?” almost certainly can’t be found through study, or books or rusty academia, but by learning to play and actually living life rather than observing it.

So if I know this already, then why the hell can’t I quit?



Roswell Ivory, from last year.

Art, Conflict and Pot-Stirring

I sometimes get asked why I write about controversial issues, why I often invite argument or “stir the pot.”

“It’s what I do!” I reply. But I’ve been thinking about this, and the question deserves some sort of deeper answer.

As I’m writing this, not six feet away from me, my two sons are fighting again. Not physically fighting (although a certain amount of wrestling is normal for brothers) but I mean the usual type of yelling, disagreements and petty insults which are normal for a couple of young male siblings who are only three years apart. Rich and I recognise it as inevitable, but that doesn’t make it easy to live with, particularly because we’re normally such easy going parents, and we don’t like living in the middle of a war-zone (which is what it feels like tonight.)

So much of our everyday lives involves conflict, politics and disagreement. You can get overloaded with it just listening to the news every day, but there’s also conflict and argument at work, at home, and so on. So it’s natural that photographers and artists definitely want to stay well clear of politics in the art world, because they’ve had enough of it in everyday life. Photography is meant to be relaxing, it’s meant to be fun, it’s supposed to be playing. Why invite conflict by writing about contentious issues? Why not just publish soothing, calm, uncontroversial articles that make people warm and fuzzy? Why not stick to topics that don’t rock the boat? Or better still, Lin, why not just keep your big mouth shut?

Hmm…Well, let me draw an analogy between writing and another art form, by way of explanation. The same reasoning applies to both.

When you publish a photograph, whether it’s online on a blog or web site, or whether you exhibit it as a print, you are inviting viewers to judge your work. The same argument applies to a piece of writing. For every person that does like it, you’ll find two that don’t. Some people may think it’s a moving and innovative artistic statement, but there will certainly be others who disagree, who think it’s banal and average, who think they could have done it better, or who simply hate it for reasons of personal bias or because they have different tastes. So the process of publishing any type of art will invite conflict by its very subjective nature.

In some ways it’s easier to avoid conflict by not showing your work. I believe this is a mistake. “You are your art,” as my oldest son is fond of saying. It is the essence of who you are, your artistic statement, it is what you stand for. If you don’t invite controversy and conflict and you go out with the aim of never offending anyone, then quite frankly you run the risk of creating banal, meaningless art, or worse, you won’t produce photographs or write at all. Your art, by its very nature, begs an audience. It needs to be published because it invites discussion, stimulates the imagination, it teaches, and the controversy and discussion involved results in evolution of both artist and the viewer.

IMO, conflict is therefore a good thing. When my boys argue (tonight they’re actually arguing about who is best at CGI art, believe it or not! Yikes, our kids have become their parents already!) it means that at the end of the evening, they’ll either have come to a consensus, or they may well still vehemently disagree. But they will have learned something from looking at that artistic image, discussing it, and arguing like cat and dog about it. Their opinion of the process of art will have evolved.

Conflict is an inevitable part of the artistic process. It is a positive step. A process of growth. So don’t be disheartened if you feel like your photographs, paintings, CGI images, or even your written blog posts end up as a virtual war zone. This is completely and utterly normal, and it’s all part and parcel of being an artist.

“Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving.”
John Dewey

(Oh no, I’m getting addicted to quotations…I blame Mr Wood...)



Syd, who is hopefully popping round for coffee and a shoot some time soonish.

Lost In Fog

This week England is fog-bound. It’s a dark, damp pea-souper over here. The famous English grey mists have descended, and we can barely see a few yards from our front door. It makes driving a nightmare, of course, plus it doesn’t do much for most folks’ moods either.

And yet I love it. It’s like being enveloped in a fuzzy cocoon. The world has contracted, suddenly become smaller. It’s like being lost in time, transported to a mysterious fading black-and-white Brigadoon where sound is muffled, the air smells cold and dank, and emotions are subdued in the grey nothingness. As I look outside, the trees are no longer lush green and brown, but stark black silhouettes against a high-key greyish white backdrop. For this week only, my existence is almost exactly like living inside a black and white fine art landscape photograph. All light and dark shadows at f11 exposure.



So what’s it like living inside a b+w photograph? Well, the first thing that strikes you is the effect it has on your psyche. If your normal average day is a colour photograph, then colour = vibrancy, intense emotion, clarity, LIFE. Its message is easily understood by just about everyone. But how is an emotional message conveyed in a black and white image? When the colour and the life is gone? Because everything is reduced to shades of grey, how do you express feelings, how do you tell the story, show your vision to the viewer?

Well, of course emotions are perfectly possible in b+w photography, but the way they are perceived is very different. If colour equals intense and obvious emotion, then shades of grey are more ambiguous, more subtle, harder to fathom. Mystic almost. You have to think more, look beneath the surface, and whilst you are wandering around looking for that inner message, it is easy to become lost in the misty greyness, or miss the point of the creative vision entirely.

A really good fine art photograph succeeds because the viewer can clearly see what the artist originally intended. He can instantly see the true message in the image. Unfortunately, the nature of photography is that this only happens once in a blue moon. Few photographs are actually that good. Most of the time, b+w fine art photographs are just a mist of mediocrity, nothing special. The vision is unclear because the original artist has become lost in the fog.

O.K. well maybe the metaphor is getting a bit tired, but I’m trying to make a point here.

How does the photographer get out of the fog? How does he cut through the crap so that he can create something outstanding and unique? Well, I don’t think that it is just a case of wandering around lost, and hoping to stumble on daylight by blind luck. I’m of the opinion that extraordinary photographs are created by a combination of constant hard work and following your inner compass.

IMO, to create great photographs, as an artist first you have to know yourself. You have to believe in your own vision, and have the self-confidence to carry on regardless through the mist, trusting that you are going in the right direction to make it out the other side.

The fog is about letting go of control. You can’t see, you can’t know if any particular course of action is right. You just have to feel your way. So even though you may feel lost at the moment, you’ve just got to let go of everything else outside of what you can see in front of you. Trust your intuition. You may be blind, but this heightens your other senses, makes them sharper, more focused. You might not be able to judge clearly today, but pause, take a step back, watch the light and the way it shapes the shadows. See the magic that the mist transforms into something else entirely - a new pattern, a new way of perceiving reality. And then recognise that pattern as art.

And when the fog finally lifts, and the sky is flooded with brilliant sunshine and crystalline vibrant colours, then your creative vision will be clear in front of you. And you can move on.




A very early image of Kate, upside down.

It’s all about me, me, me

Thanks for yesterday's comments folks, which really got me thinking...

Why is ego so important in art nowadays?

Once upon a time, photographic art was something that was commissioned, paid for. Most of the famous painters throughout time were paid to paint, and were directed in what they produced. I guess professional glamour, portrait photography and so forth, would fall under this bracket today. Your client's needs dictate the direction in which the art goes. Effectively the art is produced to a spec, whilst allowing the artist to experiment with his art within those limits.

But what about the humble and invariably destitute art photographer? He doesn’t operate within any limits, only those of his imagination. How fabulous! But he doesn’t get paid either. Do any of you art-nude photographers make a decently monthly sustainable wage from shooting fine-art nudes? No don’t bother answering that. I can hear the cynical laughter from thousands of miles away. Nowadays such commissions are extremely rare.

In these days of the internet-focussed art world, most of today’s art produced by the ordinary average artist doesn’t result in guaranteed payment. Nowadays artists are judged by results, on how good they are. It has a strong psychological element. Artists are expected to express their soul in their art, and they are judged accordingly. Only if a photograph is outstanding not just technically, but also conveys depth, emotion, a message, only then does a photographer stand a hope making the grade of “an artist.” What does this painting of a nude say about the artists intent and motivations? What was he inspired by? What was he feeling when he painted that?

Wow. What incredible pressure. No wonder an artist is nervous about showing his work. If an art critic says that photograph is crap, then it’s not just the image that is crap, it’s like saying the whole of the photographer’s psyche is a failure too. No wonder most photographers are nervous when their work is published. It’s like putting your emotional guts on the firing line. The slightest criticism could result in the poor photographer questioning not only his art, but his worth as a human being too.

Sure, a photographer may say, “I don’t care what you think. This is my vision. I am my work. Everything you need to know about me is in my art. It’s who I am. If you don’t like it, don’t look at it.” And that’s fair enough, and I admire an artist who is mentally strong enough to genuinely feel that. But all too often, it’s just words, and the artist feels crushed and twisted up inside. An artist is only human, and the ego is fragile at the best of times. And there’s the time element too. If a photographer who has spent years of dedication and passion to produce a portfolio of images, and then to have them rejected by potential galleries and slated by critics, or worse still, totally ignored, then it’s enough to make even the most passionate photographer consider quitting and taking up knitting instead.

Of course, the opposite can apply. You can have an artist who is effectively so supremely self confident about his work that it borders on narcissism. Some artists have an inordinate fascination with themselves. Their ego is so bloated that they think they are practically perfect, and derive an almost erotic gratification from admiring their own work. And that’s perfectly wonderful too, IMO. All the self-help books and shrinks in the world teach you to love yourself. And self-love can be great for your art. Make no bones about it, if you are confident that you produce outstanding work, then it is much more likely that you will be able to convince others that’s it’s fabulous too. The most effective marketing tool in the world is self-confidence.

So should we all start buying self-help books and brainwash ourselves into thinking we are all Picasso? Should you sort out your emotional self-doubts, get some therapy, and then this will make you a better artist?

Is it better to have self-love rather than no-love? Arrogance or humility?

There’s no easy answer to these questions. A photographer is not a trained shrink. He can’t be expected to psychoanalyse himself every time he makes a photo, and consider how society will judge him if he shot that nude in that particular way. He shoots an image by way of experimentation, he re-creates the vision that is in his head. If he thought about the feelings and reactions of others all the time, then he’d be so paralysed by fear that he wouldn’t shoot anything at all. Although arguably his self-doubts and fragile ego probably make him a better artist. Angst is a powerful motivator of outstanding art. Humble photographers may well produce better photographs that arrogant ones. Think of all that juicy consuming passion and angst inspiring your art, flowing through it. All that wonderful emotion captured in your work. Mmm…

However, it IS important to keep a balance between self-confidence and self-doubt. Worrying about critics or courting approval of others puts a dangerous amount of power in the hands of your viewers. As Mr Wood so eloquently said in yesterday's comment, "You have the CHOICE to let these negative things weave their way into your life or not."

Fear can paralyse your artistic development. It’s not possible to please everyone all of the time, no matter how good you are. So just be yourself. You are who you are. Forget about everybody else – don’t get distracted by the background noise.

Just get on with doing what you do. The business of creating.

“Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.”
Vincent van Gogh



Claire-Louisa.

(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.

I resolve....

Rich’s new year resolution is to lose weight. Again.
As with most people, this is likely to fall by the wayside within the first few weeks of January, especially since our middle son has resolved for the New Year to improve his cake-baking ability (wannabe trainee chef.) I predict that Rich is doomed to failure within a very short time-span.

Making promises to yourself to change is a good thing of course. It’s great to want to improve yourself, to be a better person. But more often than not, these resolutions fail.

Why?

Because we make unrealistic expectations of ourselves. We aspire to dreams that are well beyond our capabilities. We are perfectionists. We dare to dream, but when reality bites, we blame ourselves.

Big-scale change involves deprivation, suffering, adapting to a new regime. And most importantly it involves changing your daily habits. It’s the habit-changing that is the most difficult thing. Humans are animals of routine. On the whole, we dislike change. It’s scary and unpleasant. Unless you have a will of steel, or there’s a gun to your head, then changing your daily habits is going to be extremely difficult and very unlikely to succeed.

And yet…we continue to make resolutions. We are eternal optimists. We believe we can do it. High hopes are hard to give up, which is why we repeat the same old resolutions year after year. We set ourselves up for failure, for the guilt trip. And for what?

You’ll note that older folks don’t bother to make New Year Resolutions any more. With age comes wisdom, and older people have either achieved ultimate perfection already, or they have realised that beating themselves up for constantly falling short of their expectations, simply doesn’t work and isn’t worth the energy.

My suggestion? Don't make any new year's resolutions at all. If you want to change, just do it. Doesn’t matter what day of the year it is. Just stop smoking, don’t drink so much, stop pigging out on the wrong food and lose that weight. But follow your dream in a way that works for you. Be real. Realise your limitations, and take it slowly. Set yourself short term goals, change your habits gradually. Get support from your friends and family.

And if life gets in the way, and you screw up and you can’t keep to your resolutions at all, then do not under any circumstances beat yourself up about it. Forgive yourself. You are not a failure. It just means that your original resolutions were a little over-optimistic. Or maybe the time just wasn’t right to follow that particular dream now. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try that dream again some day. It just means that you should keep your feet firmly on the ground whilst doing it.



Lilmummy, taken last year. I resolve for Rich to shoot more nudes than last year...it IS O.K. to make resolutions on behalf of your partner, right?

Statistically speaking, yesterday did not happen

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

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

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

So we travelled home.

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

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

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

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

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

Empty platitudes.

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

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

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

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

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


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

So how come there is a God?

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

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

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

Go figure!



Roswell Ivory, facing a demon!

Power to the Children

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you realise what immense power this is?

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

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



This is Kate, from last year.

The Meaning of Inspiration

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

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

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

But does it mean anything?

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

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

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

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

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

This process is what I mean by “inspiration.”

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

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

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



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

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

Bet she didn’t know that!

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.)

Here's to our amazing family, warts and all

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.
Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

Richard Bach - Illusions

Roswell Ivory, plus groovy fetish boots.
BTW, this is our 200th post :-)

Sunday's child

The last week has been crappy, as well as the one before it. This is partially health related, but mostly the fault of work, which is hell. Our stress levels are off the scale. So how do other folks handle this level of stress and still stay sane?

Well, some go to therapists of course (sorry, too broke for therapy), some rely on anti-depressants (sorry, I believe they make things worse), and a large proportion take to alcohol in copious amounts. However, since our lives turned mega-crappy, neither Richard nor I have touched a drop.

So why didn't we drink? If ever there was a time to numb the pain, to silence the terror, the last two weeks have been it.

Funnily enough I don’t think it has ever occurred to us. Sometimes, like now, life can be so unrelentingly grim that it brings its own anaesthetic. As physical pain causes the body to release endorphins, so extreme emotional pain can bring its own cocoon. And after the hell has passed, there is only peace and simplicity left. Nothing else remains.

Today nothing else seems important other than the bright sunshine streaming through my window as I type this. The pretty field outside, the intense brilliant blue of the sky, the hug from my little daughter as she tells me I’m beautiful. Life is pretty much perfect, right this moment in time.

I hope you have a joyous Sunday, whatever you're up to!



Rachel T - I keep coming back to the images from this shoot. I guess I think they're beautiful.

If you don’t mind, since it’s Sunday and meaning-of-life stuff is supposed to happen on the Sabbath, I'm featuring an extract from “the Witches” by Anne Rice.

“Peace of mind can be obtained in the face of the worst horrors and the worst losses. It can be obtained by faith in change and in will and in accident, and by faith in ourselves, that we do the right thing, more often than not, in the face of adversity.

We are the only true moral force in the physical world, the makers of ethics and moral ideas, and we must be as good as the gods we’ve created in the past to guide us.

I believe that through our finest efforts, we will succeed finally in creating heaven on earth, and we do it every time that we love, every time that we embrace, every time that we commit to create rather than to destroy, every time that we place life over death, and the natural over what is unnatural, in so far as we are able to define it.

If any revelation awaits us at all, it must be as good as our ideals and our best philosophy. If that isn’t so then we are in the grip of a staggering irony. And all the spooks of hell might as well dance in the parlour.

There could be a devil. People who burn other people to death are fine. There could be anything.

But the world is simply too beautiful for that.”

"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.