The Serious Hat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Price Your Soul?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Say Cheese

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Squashed

Three things happened yesterday, two good one bad.

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

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

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

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

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

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The British Woman's Friday Night Party Kit

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

Justify My Art

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Private Dancers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Penetrating Photographic Experience

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What ?”

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

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

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

“Me too. Me too…”

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hay.”

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

“Hayyyyyyouch!”

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

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

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

“Me too, sweetie, me too.”

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Don't try this at home folks

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

The Art of Seuss

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

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

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

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



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



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

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

Everyone has their price

For anyone who missed all the drama yesterday...

SuicideGirls v. Lithium Picnic Lawsuit Settled

(Thanks to Scott for the link)

So...the question for mankind is:

Did Warner sell out or was it a con?

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Image is of Pirate Maiden

Rock Bottom

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

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

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

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

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Too much tax maketh a zombie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Full of hot air and not much else

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