Glamour photography : whores and cameras?

The Bob Shell thread got me thinking, what is it anyway? I've

always been fairly suspicious of it, mainly because it seems to

serve absolutely NO purpose other than tittilation, and seems to

have unbelievably one dimension attributes- attractive, scantily

(or un)clad models, and photographers with an interest in same

(the "whores" I was referring to). I've seen very little work from

anybody to convince me otherwise. And what's the top of the

heap? The Pirelli calender? Playboy magazine? The only

difference I can see between "glamour" and "porn", is that porn

is more honest. And if Art is the search for truth, then isn't

pornography, which hides nothing, the more deserving of being

described as "photography"?

 

Tom

Tom, you're touching on some philosophical thoughts in the area of Nitzche's "Existentialism". That's why in our world we have people who cannot handle the truth, and venture into these grey areas and eventually get themselves in trouble. I've learnt in my life at least, to be totally honest with oneself is still the best doctrine, and I'm not talking about religion or any other beliefs.

BTW, I agree with you. Playboy and porno magazines are downright honest.....at least in the subject we are referring to.

Typo, it should be Nietzsche, not Nitzche.

I would say that you are absolutely right, Tom. The problem is that there are both hypocrites and delusionists around who say that the only reason they're taking pictures of naked females (and these days, males) is for Art - note the capital 'A'.

 

This attitude isn't new, of course. Look at Michelangelo's 'David' which is touted as a great piece of art, whereas to a lot of people it's simply a pinup in stone. The Three Graces? Much of Rubens's output? You make your own mind up.

 

In just a moment, though, we'll get the 'great art brigade' telling us it's our own fault for having dirty minds and being obsessed with sex. Personally, I never had a problem with that, there are a lot worse things in the world to be obsessed with...

I've never done any "glamour", "porn" or really any nudes at all,

and while I share your scoffing at the "glamour modeling" business, maybe the fees

help

put food on some kid's plates, some shoes on their feet, because Dad & Mom's

combined minimum wage salaries are

enough to raise a family on, or because the woman has been abandoned by the

sperm provider. This is still a free country and who said it was any your

business what consenting adults do?<P> Or maybe we should consider all advertising

and commercial photography as porn. Starting with tobacco and alcohol ads. After all

we are continuously indoctrinated with the idea that "sex sells."<P>So please,

Ayatollah Tom, please spare us your phallus-centered high and

mighty self righteous hypocrisy.<P>The only thing is a criteria for whether an activity

is "photography" is whether or not lenses and cameras were used to create a visual

document.<P>Keep saying "no" long enough and you'll end up living in a closet of

mirrors without enough breath left in you to fog the glass.

It's not as simple as 'nudity = pornography,' of course. James Joyce said something that applies here. He said, "Any art that causes the viewer to want to possess it is pornography." Nothing to do with nudity or the content of the art at all. I would say that any photo in which the person is portrayed as an object (of lust...?) rather than a subject is also suspect, as well as virtually all advertising. But as many in the photo world rely on that for their livelihood, we're not likely to hear much honest discussion about it, are we?

Hang on Ellis, I'm the one who does the rants around here... :-)

 

I think you're missing Tom's point. I read his post to mean that it's the hypocrisy that he sees as the problem. He doesn't seem to me to be complaining about taking pictures of naked people, just about the way in which it's all presented.

 

I've no problem with people being obsessed with sex but art should be honest and if you're going to take these sorts of picture admit that you're doing it to titilate someone, quite probably yourself.

I don't think the Bob Shell incident is about sex or pornography or even nude photography. The issue is that somebody died; a thing that does not normally happen in the process of posing. In this case, the model's overdosing and dying are being inappropriately confounded with photography and sex. People pose. You can take a course in figure photography or painting at the junior college--even a state-owned one. It's acceptable. People have sex. That's their business. The fact that someone died is awful, but it doesn't cheapen these other human activities.

<I> I read his post to mean that it's the hypocrisy that he sees as the problem.

</I><P> Please referto the title he chose for this thread. It could have been

titled:<P>Glamour photography : models and men?<P> Glamour photography : the

obsessions of lonely men?<P>Glamour photography : What are the socilological

issues?<P>Glamour photography : why do some heterosexual men feel the need to

reduce women to just representations of their bodies?<P>

Glamour photography : "Johns" and their emotional inadequacies ?<P>But he chose

the word "whores". And thereby puts the moral onus on the models.

Mr. Higgins appears to have problems dealing with his own sexuality and the guilt he attaches to it. Putting the blame on the "whores", those nasty seductresses tempting the rightious from the True Path of Godliness? Much easier to do that than to deal with his own hang ups. At the bottom of this conundrum we'll probably find a religious basis, so I'll point out that in order to be delivered from temptation that which tempts must be allowed to exist.

Al, you're stretching the metaphor a bit for the apparent purpose of going off on your own rant.

 

I think Tom made a good point: The only thing standing between glamour and porn is a thin veil of respectability. If the pic is tittilating, it simply doesn't matter whether or not the model is clad or not: It's porn. See the recent "No Words, Great Ass" thread for some example pics.

Tom,

 

your choice of words or rather a word (whores) betrays that you are obviously uncomfortable with the fact that the depiction of nudes has been a major sujet in the arts (or Arts) for ages, even before the whole thing became so commercialized that the nude (model) could be so wrongly associated with those getting paid for providing sexual services.

 

I feel sorry for those who cannot distinguish between the nude in Art and the nude in porn. (And, by the way, since you wrote this following up the Bob Shell thread, I feel sorry for those who are not willing to respect a person's legal right to be regarded not guilty before proven otherwise.) Art is about freedom - freedom of mind, that is, in other words: freedom of those who like to think for themselves and not let others dictate what they could or could not do. Porn, quite on the other side, is about money. It sells, so they do it. (I believe that it is the "good" moralists who make porn successful by creating the demand for what they are trying to hide, what to them appears "dirty" even in its cleanest form: the beauty of the unclad human.)

 

My native language is German, where we unfortunately lack the wonderful distinction between "nude" and "naked" of the English language. Why is it that some English speakers cannot see this distinction?

 

By the way, "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger gives an excellent introduction to art, and particularly the nude in the arts.

 

Günter

The weird thing is that most "glamour" photography (e.g. page 3 of The Sun newspaper in the UK) is totally unerotic.

The "whores" Tom referred to were the photographers, not the models.

 

"Glamour" photography exists in a different area. It's not "art" and it's not "porn". I don't know what it is other than pretty girls looking pretty. It doesn't matter much to me one way or the other. Personally, I like pretty girls and tittilation too.

 

I think Ralph Gibson made some interesting observations in his book "Deaux/Machina". He apparently attempted to produce artful photographs of pornographic subjects and admitted to his failure.

 

But then, who says art is the search for truth? And who the hell would know what truth was if it bit them on the ass anyway? Much of the world's great classical art was done on commission. Like a Marlboro ad. Or a Budweiser commercial.

"I feel sorry for those who cannot distinguish between the nude in Art and the nude in porn"

 

Now, now Gunter, I'm not sure I can let you get away with that. The only difference is in the eye of the beholder and, no matter what way you cut it, one man's art is another man's pornography. Try taking a statue of a nude to a Muslim country that practices Sharia law and see where it gets you.

 

Tom's subject line was a bit provocative but I think he's raised a valid point here. If it makes some people uncomfortable, as it seems to have done, then that's a good thing. We should all have our assumptions challenged regularly, that's what our western way of life is all about.

o.k. let me clear up a few things- the whores I was referring to in

the title were the photographers, not the models. I never said

"nudity = porn". It has nothing to do with Bob Shells current

troubles- I don't know the man, I have no idea what his

circumstances are. Al, I trust now I've explained who the whores

are you'll understand that far from being religious,I wish there

was a god for me not to believe in.----- "The only thing is a criteria

for whether an activity is "photography" is whether or not lenses

and cameras were used to create a visual document." -well

done,Ellis,(spoken like a true whore) from the lofty heights of

your own soapbox you've pretty much summed up why

photography is undoubtedly a dying Art, however I rather prefer-

" Camera and eye are together a time machine with which the

mind and human being can do the same kind of violence to time

and space as dreams" as a point to aim for, has a better ring to

it, don't you think? I have no problem whatsoever with nudity,

sexuality, everyone having their own opinion, etc. I have no

problem with pornography, either, it's glamour photography that

offends me. It's without point, taste, or merit. The very reason so

much (so,so much) glamour photography is absolute crap is

that the criteria rarely gets beyond "well-lit cute naked chick-

that's all you need,right?"(these are called "opinions" and I

formed them in my very own steamy mirror closet).

 

Tom

Chill, Ellis. He isn't suggesting that laws be passed. He is simply saying that in his opinion as one private individual, glamour photography serves little purpose other than titillation and is therefore not honest. Is he not entitled to his opinion? Or must anybody who expresses a thought not in line with the current politically correct orthodoxy be demonized?

Can you guys post some pictures to clarify the argument? Visualizing is the key here, and Leica-created porn shots would really help.

I've known a lot of figure models. My impression is that they don't just do it for the money. Some like the adrenaline rush that comes from doing something taboo--like undressing in front of a total stranger. Some just want to see what it is like--they are adventurers. Others want to compare themselves to the pinups they see in the media. ("I could do that.") Others like being the focus of attention. Others like the "eye" of the particular photographer and want to see how he might see them. A fair amount of modeling is to answer at least a part of the question "Who am I?"

 

I am less clear about the motives of the photographers, because I am one of them. I do think that a part of what we do is struggle with the mystery of beauty. Why is it there? Why does it affect us so much? A Japanese maple could do its job just as well without being gracefully shaped. Why, then, is it so gracefully beautiful? Why am I so moved by looking at it? A woman could walk just as well on ugly legs: why, then, do her legs have beauty? This beauty, mysterious as it is, seems to command our respect, even homage. Are photographers paying that homage? As for the sexual part, I am as lost as anyone. Why would anyone want to be in the room with a naked woman he cannot touch? Is it masochistic? I have only one insight on the sex part, and I don't even know how to interpret it: if I'm feeling really horny, I don't take good pictures; if I'm not horny at all, I don't take good pictures; I have to be in the middle. And that applies not only to glamour shots!

I don't intend to blur, here, a distinction between fine-art nudes and images that are designed to titillate. Fine-art nudes, IMHO, are made for the photographer alone, with no regard to how someone might react to them. The sexy shots are made with an audience in mind. Anyone agree or disagree?

Kevin,

 

you've mentioned the Joyce quote on what constitutes porn a few times now; do you know where it comes from? I ask mainly because I find it difficult to concur with and wonder if it is really accurate.

 

There are some fine famous photographs of nudes where, at least for me, there is a feeling of 'wanting to posess'. One of Weston's pics of his lover in the sand is one of them. I find it extraordinarily erotic as well, which gives it another dimension if we count eroticism and lust as related but separate. Yet there are many other dimensions to the pictures which make them formally exqusite, having more to do with sculptural qualities, which I am 'at the same time' also very aware of.

 

I would suggest that it is the accompaniment of these other qualities which rescue it from being porn even though a certain amnount of lust is also present.

 

If the Joyce quote that you quote is accurate then I would amend it to: if titilation or lust is the ONLY intended result of a picture, then it is porn.

Tom, it might help clarify things a little if you tightened up what you mean by glamour photography. Would you include, Helmut Neuman, or Herb Ritts, or David Hamilton's fay little blurred things? Do you mean the sort of advertising that you can see in Vogue magazine or Marie Claire? Or do you only mean the sort of stuff one sees in tabloids and in Playboy? In other words 'Pin-up' photography - the sort of stuff that gets put on the inside of locker room doors.

Robert, I'd like to respond to your question, also as a photographer of the nude. You've said much I agree with. There has to be some sort of spark between model and photographer, otherwise, in my opinion, you end up with lifeless images of a naked person. It is why, again in my opinion, the sexiest images (boy that's a loaded term) are by the likes of Weston, Stieglitz, or Ralph Gibson and Jeanluoup Seiff (for all the Leica buffs), who photographed mainly people they had a personal relationship with. Again, I personally find the images of people like Newton pretty lifeless and far from sexy (erotic). I also agree with your final thought. Fine art photographers (in which I guess I include myself) photograph strictly to please themselves, and possbily there models. If I shoot something and it sells (in a gallery)...well 'yipee I yo kiyay'. But if it doesn't, yet pleases me and my model...there you go. This (again IMHO) is far different than shooting with the wide range sales as the primary goal. Not that I necessarily think either is particularily right or wrong...I don't think Newton is trying to sell us a philisophical outlook, he's trying to sell his idea of sex (or at least Vogues idea of sex). So be it. The one thing I know is that it will be impossible to come to any conclusions on this forum, it is such a loaded topic. To some people even a hint of flesh inappropriately shown is too much, and at the other end of the spectrum are the 'anything but real bloodhed' goes.

I believe it was Gustav Klimt who said, "All art is erotic". I don't

feel, however, that the essential meaning of *erotic* in such a context equates with what most individuals would consider simply sexual. No, I believe it is much deeper and more mysterious (notwithstandng its obvious applicability, however, to areas that are honestly sexual). I believe the one essential theme of all art has been the identification with, and the celebration of, that mysterious root or core energy. Awareness of this reality consequently invalidates the preponderance of much marketable *art*,

because it is in fact a variety of substitute/counterfeit, having been spawned by non-artists. Much that is calculated to be perceived (and purchased) as *art* is simply a gesture within an acknowledged category of type. Conversely, much genuine art that is created by real artists may be unsuccesful in the marketplace, and may be destined to oblivion without so much as a footnote in the official archives of art history.

Photography seems particularly rife with coy images suggesting a slick but *discreet* contemporary sexuality - this masquerades routinely as *art* in the genre of *fine-art nudes*. Very little honesty is required to evaluate the real message of these images or the poverty of vision that promotes their ubiquity. The most telling evidence of their non-art status is the continual recourse to the obvious sexual attraction/titillation dynamic. Most fine art nudes (not to mention *glamour*) seem like pornography with training-wheels! A real artist/photographer will see the nude in the same celebratory (erotic) spirit as, perhaps, a shell or a flower - it is the connection with that real, transcendent, energy that vitalizes and invigorates - not the cutting-edge of the sexually tolerable.

Robert B, I like your thoughtful response. Thanks for that.