Yet Another Example of Rip-Off Britain

Well, we’re alive.
Alive and pretty angry.

But what is so bad it has upset the Fluffies you ask?

Introducing the new Canon EOS 50D 15.1MP Digital SLR
And what a beauty she is!



US price for body only: $1,399.95 US Dollars on Amazon.com

At today’s exchange rate, this makes the equivalent UK price £796 uk pounds sterling. Woo hoo! A bit tight for the budget, but do-able I guess.

Now let’s see if we can find it on Amazon in the UK.

UK price for body only: £1,199.99 uk pounds sterling on Amazon.co.uk (equivalent US price $2,110 US Dollars)

Why is it we live here again?

Panem et circenses

Panem et circenses, "bread and circus" games, were the only remaining cares of Roman plebs who had long given up their political freedom. Bread was distributed amongst the poor people but everybody liked the circus games. This strategy was an efficient political instrument in the hands of the Emperors to keep the population peaceful, and at the same time giving the citizens the opportunity to voice themselves via the popular entertainment channels of gladiators, exotic animals, chariot races and sports competitions.

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Recently I came across one of those new fangled CCTV cameras with loudspeakers attached, which barked at me when I got out of my car. It warned me VERY LOUDLY to remove all valuables and lock my car because there were thieves operating in the town that day. Well one assumes that if they were watching me, then they’d watch the thieves too (and apprehend them) so why the need to make me jump out of my skin with fright? A friendly warning from Big Brother, or something more sinister? It was at that moment that it really hit me just how far we had come along the road to totalitarianism.

The US, the UK, China and Russia are "endemic surveillance societies," according to a study last year. The 2007 International Privacy Ranking gave Britain the "black" or "endemic" ranking for the second year in a row. The US fell to the bottom rung for the first time due to increasing government surveillance and decreasing federal oversight.

As I have blogged many times before, the UK is now a totalitarian state. The UK had long been on the razor’s edge between liberty and tyranny and in recent years it has tipped over the edge into an anti-utopia. Through the development of legislation, the media and sophisticated technology, the Government now controls nearly every part of our lives. They tell us how to live, what to do and how to think, all in the interests of national security of course. Citizens are not seen as freedom loving individuals with rights of their own, they are not even seen as citizens. Instead we are all now “consumers.” The Government just have to keep us happy with panem et circenses (bread and circuses) and nobody lifts a finger just as long as they can veg in front of their fave t.v. soap and pig out on pizza. Let's face it, most people don't care whether they are watched by the State because they believe they have "nothing to hide." Who cares if you’re caught on camera an average of 300 times every day? It’s all for your own good right?

Nowadays, cameras aren’t just instruments used to create fabulous images, they are also tools of oppression. Nowhere is this more evident than in China, another surveillance society and the first totalitarian state. In China photography is seen differently than in the western world, less of an expressive art form and more of a way of recording things. Because of the omnipotent role of the State in every aspect of Chinese life, their culture developed differently to ours and the development of cameras was never equated with creating or expressing the character of an individual, or exploring aesthetic views of reality. Forms of artistic expression were originally discouraged because the State was the only one allowed to dictate the development of “freedom of thought.” The role of the camera in Chinese society was to objectify, rather than in our capitalist society, where right from when the camera was first invented, individual artistic freedom was encouraged and the role of the camera rapidly developed beyond a simple recording device into a subjective tool for creating art.

So it will be interesting to see how the current social change will affect the development of photography in the new totalitarian countries like the UK, and eventually the US. How will the photographic surveillance change the way we think about cameras, and what will it mean for the future of photography? As Sontag observed, “any social change is replaced by a change in images.” How will the transformation from freedom-loving capitalist society, where our whole culture is based on images and where art is a subjective form of self expression limited only by one's imagination, translate into a totalitarian state, where cameras are seen as tools of the state, whether to protect or oppress, depending on your point of view?

I would argue that society’s view of the camera is starting to change already, as is evident in the new hostility to street photography, which is still legal (so far) but is increasingly viewed with aggression by the general public. As in Orwell’s vision, citizens are starting to turn against each other. Nowadays, people carrying cameras are viewed as suspicious and street photographers are treated as potential pervs. Society considers it perfectly acceptable for the government to use cameras to watch people, but definitely not O.K. for the general public to use cameras for the same purpose. What does this mean for the future of photography, I wonder? And what will happen to us, the photographic art community?

But not to worry, Comrades! Cheer up! No need for sad faces! Our Government has our best interests at heart you know, and it wants to protect you from those fearsome terrorists who are attacking your precious freedom.

And what better way to stop terrorism than to eliminate "freedom" in the first place? Simple, sensible and effective. And coming soon to a town near you.

Think about that the next time you are pigging out on pizza in front of the telly.

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Images are of Ifat

(R7) Food Matters

Q: What Do Models Eat?

A: They don’t :-)



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She’s worth more than that.

And so are you.



All images are of Lilmummy.

(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.

Photography in a recession

This is written with my accountant’s hat firmly bolted to my head. Try to read all of this please. No quitting. It’s important.

This will be the second recession I’ve seen in my lifetime. The first one was in the 1990’s and wound up with us having a shed-load of negative equity on our flat ("apartment" in U.S. speak) which took years to pay off. That flat was our debt pile. Rich and I were young and foolish, it was our first property, and we remortgaged and borrowed heavily to make it look like our dream home. I vividly remember our black bathroom with gold-plated bath taps. Holy crap, we had bad taste back then.

So here we all go again. Shortly we enter the “bust” part of the boom/bust cycle. Not feeling the pain yet? Don’t worry, you might have another six months of feeling flush with cash, but feel it you will. The wheel turns, and always spins back to the beginning. Nothing changes. Life just repeats itself endlessly in infinite cycles. The world will live to see another boom, but in the meantime, how do artists and photographers survive the next few years? With the rise of the internet and the rise of the cheap digital camera, the rise of freely available online photography, free software, free stock photos, even free porn, how will artists and photographers (of whatever genre) continue to make a living?

Now I’ll side with Jimmy D’s excellent article, and say they won’t. Those of us who are self-employed, and rely on photography either as our main or supplementary income, are going to suffer horribly in the next few years. There’s no chance now of Fluffytek going completely professional. Rich reckons the best he could ever manage is semi-pro. He can maybe earn a little on the side from photography via the occasional private portfolio, but he could never do this full time because the market is simply no longer there. We could sell pretty prints of course, but making your money back takes a long time. Equipment and studios cost a lot, and UK model fees have increased about 40% in the last year alone (either the inflation figures are wrong, or models have suddenly become very hungry.) TFCD models are of course the obvious solution to the latter problem, and although free art models appear to be plentiful in America, in the UK they are decidedly rare jewels. And considering the rise in the number of internet photographers, models can pick and choose, and may well (quite understandably) go where the money is, ignoring the quality of the photographer.

In the end, it all comes down to money. Everyone has to eat after all. But if the general public are economising and not able to afford your services, and collectors are hanging onto their cash because their jobs are in jeopardy and they have to feed their families, then without your photographic passion actually funding itself, you’re going to be hard-pushed to rely on your art to pay the bills, and you simply won’t have the money to pay models.

So what now? Do you give up art and become a plumber? (Always a lucrative profession in the UK as decent plumbers are very hard to come by.)

Well, I think the priority should definitely be to add more strings to your bow. It may be that your art has to take a slightly lower priority than before, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on it.



If you do decide to stick at photography or art as a source of income, then you should formulate a series of personally tailored strategies. Here is my Ten Point Action Plan (please feel free to add or subtract from the list):

1. Practise, practise, practise. In a recession, only the very best artists survive, and even they find it tough. Your work can’t be mediocre. It has to be outstanding, it has to be unique, it must stand out from the crowd, and your reputation must be flawless.

2. Barter with models more – don’t agree to the first price they charge. Beat them down a bit (fiscally speaking.) Don’t agree to the first price they quote, and try proposing a lower “all-in” price including travelling. Approach potential TFCD models and really work at booking them. If in doubt, rely in that all important male persuasion device, “charm.”

3. When you do shoot models, plan your shoot in advance as much as you can, practise lighting (Rich and I do this all the time), take less coffee breaks during the shoot, and really push your models to get the best out of them, particularly if you are intending to sell prints from the shoot. Your models won’t mind if they are genuine professionals – they will expect to work hard for their fee. And make sure your modelling release is in order. Get it checked by a lawyer if necessary.

4. Run teaching courses – always a lucrative little money-spinner if you have the time, although this is nigh impossible if you have a day-job like us. Consider providing Photoshop courses, lecturing, teaching at schools or colleges, or small tailored courses for leisure photographers – heaven knows there are an abundance of those around nowadays.

5. Compromise your principles and consider other genres. Yes I really did say that. Now I’m not proposing that everyone takes up shooting hardcore porn, largely because I don’t believe there’s a market out there for that either (too many videos and Red Tube nowadays. All the pornographers are going bust.) But you might like to think laterally for a bit. Consider other genres and a lower profit margin, such as landscape photographs for local calendars, putting on local exhibitions, collaborating with other photographers to run special events, pimping your prints, shooting private portfolios for couples, approaching magazines, even (*shudder*) bulk topless glamour piccies for 50 quid each for the lads’ mags. Whatever it takes.

I know one of our local photographers, an outstanding portrait photographer, is now reduced to going round local yummy-mummy craft fairs and charging £10 a time for quick portraits. Desperation indeed. Yes she has abandoned both taste and principles, but it’s a tough market out there. If photography is your income, you have to earn some money somehow. (I’ve used suggestions that are relevant to our little UK rural area – please do suggest as many other money-making ideas as possible. Yes they might be offensive to some, but this is reality.)

6. Advertise. Perhaps online (via Google Ads if you can afford it), fluff up your web site, get your Google search rankings as high as possible. Advertise in the local press, offer bargain lower-price offers to lure customers in (you can charge more later for extra prints or portfolio books), follow up all leads, network, make cold-calls. Do your research – whatever works for your genre and for your local area.

7. This one’s a no-brainer. STOP SPENDING MONEY. Make do and mend. If you are making a loss from your photography, then you cannot afford to use your plastic to buy that extra light, that big A3 printer, that groovy new scanner. And most importantly, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES BORROW TO FUEL YOUR ART, no matter how much you love it. IT IS NOT YOUR MONEY.

8. If your photography is not profitable, or at least breaking even over the year, then consider taking another job. This is the route we are currently going down. If you are self-employed like us, it is advisable to have your fingers in as many pies as possible. For example, I am going to take a deep breath and compromise my principles and actually try to sell some of this inane waffle that I sprout on here. I certainly don’t want to do it, but I have no choice. Bills have to be paid. Internet journalism beckons, no matter how much I hate the idea.

9. FACE REALITY. Be honest with yourself, no matter how hard this is. Draw up a list of how much you bring in, how much you spend, how much you owe, and then formulate a budget and STICK TO IT. Figure out just how much profit you made last year. And if it’s clear that your business (whether full time or supplementary) is never going to work out, rather than run up horrendous debts, be honest and get out before it takes you down with it.

10. Devise a long term survival strategy for the recession. A Five Year Survival Plan if you like. Everyone has different skills they can sell. Take a deep breath, summon your inner muse, and take some action. Start thinking and innovate. Stop wallowing in self-pity and actually DO SOMETHING.

Lastly, please don’t think, “Mmm. Nice post Lin, quite interesting. A bit boring but some good points.” And then treat this as a mildly entertaining read and promptly forget it.

I have given up five hours of my life to write this.

Why? Because it’s IMPORTANT DAMMIT!

If you don’t formulate a plan now, and actually ACT on it, how exactly are you intending to survive the next five years?



Images are of U.S. model Clayre KcKinnen.

(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.

Raptus regaliter (Royally screwed)

We interrupt our usual witty art-nude and porn (sorry I mean erotica) related repartee for a brief political rant. For those who are not remotely interested in UK politics, please skip to the next blog on your Google Reader.


Tonight, 25 million Britons are really, really pissed.

It seems that our omnipotent tax authorities, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, have lost confidential personal information on every single family in the UK who receives Child Benefit. Since everyone with kids receives this by default, that’s practically everybody.

The password-protected CDROM's, which contained all of the information on the HMRC's child benefit database, were sent unrecorded and were LOST IN THE POST!!!
The missing information contains the details of all Child Benefit records for 25 million individuals and 7m families. This includes dates of birth, national insurance numbers, bank and building society details. That effectively means the personal details of every family in the country with a child under 16 have gone missing.

The head of Revenue and Customs resigned this morning. Our esteemed Prime Minister (not renowned for his honour or integrity, but instead famous for being Machiavellian by nature) has warned of the possibility of identity fraud, and warned everyone to monitor their bank accounts.

That’s it. That’s all the help we get. No guarantee if identity theft occurs, or if money gets stolen from our bank accounts. No reassurance at all.

As you know, Rich and I run an internet software company. We take information security very seriously. Protection of customer details is critical to our business success. Our customers’ and resellers’ bank and credit card details are kept behind military-grade encryption software, and is deleted once the transaction has occurred. For regular customers who pay monthly, the encryption techniques are even stronger. No expense is spared to keep their details safe.
If I ran my company like HMRC, we’d be out of business within a day.

This government has no fucking clue! Just HOW can they get away with this? And why the hell are they still in office? How the hell are they supposed to be trusted with biometric data for identity cards next year?

Just what does it take to get rid of these idiots that run our country?


O.K. Rant over. Thank you for your time. Please also excuse the use of the “F” word, which is reserved only for when I’m suffering from extreme apoplexy induced by incompetent morons.

R2: Rise of the Aggregator

“Anything scarce is valuable” (Anon)

You say: “Site xyz has featured me on their blog. I’m so honoured to be published by them.”

I say: “What a load of bollocks! That’s not being published - it has no value!”

Let’s wind the clock back to February 2003 when Michael Barnes started the Art-Nudes blog . It was, I believe, the first of its kind. A site driven by one man who wished to collect together links to what he considered the best in art-nude photography. A site which gave the viewer a new talent to examine and appreciate every day. It was an invaluable resource for anyone who was interested in the genre.

It was the first art-nude aggregator, and as such there was both a demand by the viewers for new images and by the photographers to be featured. Thus being featured on the blog was something that was considered valuable to the photographer as it gave coverage and publicity, and there was (and still is) a certain kudos if your work appeared there. As photographers were featured, many would link back to the blog in appreciation, thus increasing its value and fame.

Its value was in its uniqueness.

However, it was not a form of peer review. It was not selective of only the very highest quality because such a blog has a need to add new images. It would not be possible to run the blog showing only the work of the best 20 photographers, or even the top 200. This would have limited its diversity. So in practical terms it was very nice to be listed but it didn’t carry weight as actually “being a published photographer”.

Now you might wonder why I would say this. I’m certainly not trying to devalue Michael’s work, which we have on many occasions promoted. In fact we love his blog, and the passion and dedication to art-nude photography. However, as with most art, there has been a tendency to copy uniqueness, and now there are hundreds, nay thousands, of similar blogs from people who decided to copy Michael’s idea.

Nowadays, artists post all the time on their blogs whenever they get featured on any aggregator. They seem to think it is some form of review.



Let me say this again. There is no publishing value in an aggregator!

The internet is the ultimate in free publishing. It costs nothing to create a blog, it costs nothing to create posts, and it costs nothing to link to and show images from a photographers site. I therefore postulate that in this context, free has no value.

Of the thousands of aggregators that have sprung up imitating Michael’s blog, some are quite selective and rather good, but some are bad and feature any rubbish they can find. These sites have the same running costs, nothing. If the blogger chooses bad images there is no loss to them. If they close the site there are no jobs lost. They have no vested interest in making the best choices other than their desire to have a high visitor count. Thus being listed on one of these sites cannot possibly be counted as being published any more than having someone visit your site is considered being published.

Compare this to a magazine or book. If the images are bad then the publication doesn’t sell, so there will be no advertisers or subscribers and the magazine will go bust and the editor and staff lose their jobs. It’s a big difference and changes the whole focus of the image selection.

There is another kind of aggregator site which charges to view the images. These sites, for example Michelle7 charge their viewers. Thus their content must be good enough for the subscribers to pay and this enforces a selection procedure that imparts value to the act of being selected.

It’s this selection pressure that makes the inclusion have a value. There is a quantifiable loss involved in getting it wrong.

Now it’s easy to argue that a good aggregator will have value in that it will have recurring visitors and it is this volume of visitors that give it value. This is to some level true, but over time the rise of the aggregator sites and growth of them is becoming their own downfall.

Enter into this the site StumbleUpon. This is the ultimate aggregator. Anyone can create a Stumble account. Each account has a blog. You can add to your Stumble blog by right clicking an image and adding it to the blog together with a text entry. It’s the aggregator taken to its ultimate limit of ease of use, simplicity and mass market appeal. It is to photography aggregators what WalMart is to baked beans.

There are some good aggregators on Stumble, showing some remarkable work. But no-one in their right mind would shout about being added to a Stumble blog.

Stumble is the death through democratisation of the aggregator.

So please, if an aggregator features you, remember it has no value, it’s free and for every time you post a message about xyz site listing you, you have probably been Stumble-blogged many more times.

Finally. I want to be published some more, so please click the Stumble button below this post.

See - wasn’t that easy?!
How does it feel to be your very own aggregator?

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These photographs are of the lovely Pirate Maiden who is very much worth adding to your aggregator.

Rant Number 1

Good morning and welcome to our new and exciting feature: Ranting Rich’s Friday Morning Rantathon. Our hero’s spicy and belligerent commentary on life, the universe and the meaning of Art.

I don’t get it!

I have often seen images that make me wonder what‘s wrong with people.

As an example I came across an image on Model Mayhem that reinforced this view. This shows a model perched over a toilet seat, wearing (supposedly) blood stained knickers with blood all over the toilet, her legs and toilet paper. The amount of blood is such that it’s not possible to think that it’s just the result of menstruation. So the viewer is left to wonder, has she been raped, has she had a miscarriage, is she haemorrhaging due to illness?

It’s obviously about pain and suffering, but its glossed up, well lit, and posed by a model. It’s not documentary, so I guess it’s about making a statement for the ‘Art’. Now I have had the misfortune of seeing a woman with that amount of blood and she did not look like she was thinking ‘oooh look at that’. Nor was she playing. She was clutching her stomach in agony.

There are a number of photographers and models who have commented about how fantastic this photograph is. It obviously appeals to them as an artistic statement.

There are also many ‘edgy bondage’ sites that show bound women being tied, beaten and bundled into the back of cars. Of course it’s all in the name of art and its harmless right? (Please note that I am excluding the erotic bondage sites from this description).

Well, let’s look at another class of image (bottom of this post), something so extreme and distasteful that MM won’t show it, Web Models won’t show it. It’s beyond the pale of what normal decent people could look at.

This could not be listed at any online modelling site I know of. It’s considered porn. There is no blood, no violence, no statement on society. It’s just about erotic self stimulation. And I suspect that my even showing this on the blog will shock and horrify models and have them cancel bookings with me in case, God forbid, I should ask them to do something like this. And if the image were a man and woman touching each other, OMG, how awful would that be?

So we have a situation that means that images which represent death, serious illness, abduction, kidnap and pain are acceptable, but the ones that represent erotic play and the one act that is required to create every living person on the planet, are taboo and frowned upon.

“I don’t do porn!” says the model, but I’ll show myself as a victim of rape, or suicide or anything that’s ‘arty’ but God forbid I shoot be shown as an erotic creature of love and desire. How twisted is that?!

This is reflected in so many ways in society, and in the art and media community especially. Consider Reality TV or some of the British soaps, which focus on the bad in society. I guess blood and gore have more interest, like driving slowly past a car wreck to see if you can see a body. But don’t even mention sex, unless it’s prostitutes, druggies and rape.

I do understand that the problem here is me. I would expect people to want to be represented by life, beauty, eroticism and sensuality, not looking like the meat on a butchers table. But I guess I’ll never understand the mentality of someone who won’t do erotic photography but will happily shoot or praise a photograph that makes them look like a train wreck.

Since when did bloody and violent glossy art become more publically acceptable than erotic art, and what does this say about the values of the society we live in?