What drives a Photographer of the nude ?

I would like to take on some work in the realm of the fine art nude, but am

asking myself why I want to do this.

 

Is it to progress tchnically on my photographic skills? I don't think so as

surely lighting the clothed and the nude are very similar in that respect.

 

Is it to create more commercially saleable work (which I'm sure nudes would

be)? I don't think so as I am an enthusiast with a day job (albeit an active

club member) and have never sold an image in my life - and am not particularly

worried about doing so in the future, although I would like to take up the work

full time sometime in later life.

 

Is it simply about surrounding myself with beautiful unclothed women? Who

knows - I don't for sure. How do pro photographers feel about this part? Are

there any personal feelings which you have to push aside during a pro nude

shoot? Never having tried it I would imagine that there might be, although

obviously we would remain professional to the end, but I wonder what thoughts

are in the back of a photographers mind during shoots.

 

For me all of the above might apply to some degree or other, but I wonder which

of these - or others - drives the pro photographer, and what drove them to

undertake their first nude shoot when starting out. What were the photographers

thoughts AFTER their first nude shoot - was it releif, terror, fulfilment,

commercial acheivement, etc? Did this change with subsequent shoots.

 

What were friends and families opinions of photographers starting out in the

field of fine art nude - were any concerns overcome after a while?

 

many thanks for your thoughts.

Guy

"lighting" 101: start with an egg. if you can photograph that to satisfaction.....ok.....you can go on to nudes.

a clothe body is very much simpler, in a real art world, then a nude or an egg. a photographer in this case is like a doctor. if your concentrating on creating the best picture you feel then it should not affect you or the model. you two are both professionals. now, rephrase the question and ask it to doctors and you'll get the same answer. the doc may say that i am here to give care to the client. if you are getting emotionally involved with the subject matter, then perhaps you could do better photography if you did not.

like an egg, the body (animals are nude too) has infinite number of subtle forms only the photographers mind can interpret for the world to enjoy.......after the photograph is completed.

now ask yourself.....is the model a subject or an object? if IT is a subject to photograph than you gotta be objective. if object than you gotta be subjective.

just look at nearly any TV drama and script is always written to show the Pro the manner of subjectivity to his job or else he off the job.

finally, if you used your lover as a model and years later you looked at it after you broke up, will you say to yourself: 'gee i miss him/her' or will you say to yourself 'gee i took a great picture'.

 

of course this is ALL me. suggestion: take a course in a fine art school.

 

of course if commercial saleability is what drives you then just go straight to porn and don't look back.

For me it would be to surround myself with beautiful, nekked women. And since I'm married, that's why I don't shoot nudes, lol.

 

All kidding aside, I would say that the driver for most is simply a love of the human form, male or female. And I don't mean in a lustful way, just as an appreciation of the beauty of human life and the shape it has taken.

 

Though I think most (though certainly NOT all) agree that a nude male form is not as lovely as a nude female form, which is why you see so many more photos of females.

Thanks for the tips, but when I look at fine art nude work, porn is the last thing on my mind - and I'm sure the difference has been discussed to death in other posts etc so I won't even go there. That said, I agree that Hustler probably sells far more copies than err... okay I can't think of a fine art nude periodical but I'm sure you get my drift. So it can't all be about commercial saleability.

 

I like the idea of photographing the egg and can see how it would relate to the subject matter - I'll give that a go for sure, eggs don't tend to charge ?40ph plus release so that's an added bonus! I guess you can tell that I've had no formal photo training.

 

Guy

periodicals: British Journal of Photography from the 1930s are packed with nudes and printed well and is art.

For myself (who has worked primarily with the nude for the past 18 years), I work with the nude as a subject because of its challenges, and its universality.

 

By universality, I mean that the body is something people can relate to. Whether people are comfortable with it or not, the nude is a body, and everyone has one of those. When I photograph flowers, or architecture, or whatever, there is always going to be a segment of the viewing public who don't connect - they don't get it, as they have no relationship with the subject. But the body, there is always a connection, however comfortable, or uncomfortable that is for the viewer.

 

Then there is the challenge. Every model is different, and brings something new to a session. Even modesl with whom I have worked with for 8 years or more, each session is a new discovery, filled with unrealized potential. This I am sure exists with other subjects (flowers, landscapes, bugs), but then you get back to the relationship between the subject/photographer and the viewer, and the question of the connection between the two parts, and it all makes things work.

 

A chaotic rambling of sorts, but sill, my ideas in a nutshell!

I would look more towards your spiritual side for answers, rather than your intellectual/

aesthetic side. What does an image of the nude suggest you to you as a tangible

manifestation of spirit?

 

We all have spiritual backgrounding, unless you are a sociopath there's always some sense

of wondering how we connect with the universe. Skin is our most basic sheath, the thing

thing that both seperates and connects us to the rest of the physical world.

 

Needless to say, I think the nudes we relate to most strongly are those which somehow

connect with one's individual consciousness of themselves and place in the grand order of

things. So maybe that is another way of seeing who connects with you, sees the world and

life the way you do -- and who doesn't. Even if that connection is only primal.

 

Why not start slowly: a nude arm or foot or leg or neck, and see what you can do with that?

 

and check out these two photographs (and the accompanying text) by Duane Michals:

 

"The Most Beautiful Part of a Man's Body"

 

http://www.pacemacgill.com/duanemichals.php?offset=3&keyword=Duane%20Michals

 

and "The Most Beautiful Part of a Woman's Body"

 

http://www.pacemacgill.com/duanemichals.php?offset=4&keyword=Duane%20Michals

You'll have to forgive my jadedness.

 

Oh goodie, another naked lady thread. :)

 

Can we say "cliche?"

 

When is a cliche, not a cliche? When it's a picture of a naked lady.

 

Do what you will, but at least admit to yourself what you're doing, before you do it.

I apologise if my post was considered a cliche at all. I guess this is just the subject which, for me at least, I am most hesitant with.

 

Of course I understand if some people find talking about this subject mildly titillating but that isn't going to stop me from asking questions when I have a genuine concern.

 

rgds,

Guy

"What drives a Photographer of the nude ?"

 

Hormones.

<i>For myself (who has worked primarily with the nude for the past 18 years), I work with the nude as a subject because of its challenges, and its universality.</i><p>

Exactly my take, too. While the choice of the nude's build usually does change to accommodate certain fashion, the rest is universal and almost neutral; there is no clothing to date the image. What comes from it is stark evidence of the photographic qualities, which do change except in certain rigid schools of classic photography.

I think some photographs of nudes are great because they are created with the "artistic

distance" that's talked about above, in terms of approaching it like a doctor or treating the

nude as you would an egg. I'd hate, though, to think that's all there is to it. There are

many photographers who have dealt with their nudes from a very personal, subjective, and

even sexually-charged perspective and gotten very evocative, creative, and "artistic"

results. There are probably almost as many ways to approach photographing nudes as

their are photographers.

 

And, Gary, I think you are right that many would agree with your take on the beauty of the

female vs. the male body, but I hope you will consider that that might be due to no

objective facts about human bodies, but more to societal norms, taboos, male-dominated

modes of judgment, and cultural biases.

great discussion. it is that "universality" and bridge between subjective and objective imagery that the seasoned artist finally achieves, i believe, Style. sometimes sex has something to do with it and sometimes just lust, but always the expectation that there is something new (as said above), and that no two eggs are the same.

 

nice thread

hormones, smelly business... oh the sterotypes. you all assume that men are the only

photographers who shoot fine art nudes. well, that's just not a fair assessment. and it's a

bit juvenile. many women have succeeded in creating a name for themselves purely on

their nude work... Imogen Cunningham, Anne Brigman, Joyce Tenneson, etc. I don't have

the time to name all the women out there who photograph the nude, just to say that I'm

one who photographs fine art nudes too.

 

I don't photograph the nude to improve my technical side of photography, i don't even do

it to have "nekkid" women around me all the time (i'm very hetro), and i don't do it to sell

images or for a commercial aspect. i do it to COMMUNICATE. I do it to convey something

that would be lost with clothing. As soon as clothes come into the photograph it screams

fashion to me. It doesn't convey a timeless photograph that transcends through

generations. I like to also make fine art nudes to counter act the pornography that is so

rampant in this world. To feature women as powerful and confident and in control of their

bodies.

 

Sorry, for the intrusion into the locker room... I'll leave you guys to it now.

 

*eye roll*

With all due respect, Zoe, I understand what you find distasteful among the posts here and

agree with some of your assessment, but if you'll read each post individually instead of

lumping together all the men that have contributed, I think you'll find the lack of a locker

room mentality is prevalent and some true questioning going on. One or two "smelly" apples

does not a barrel make.

To pick up where I got into trouble in another thread, contemporary French photo magazines still have lots of nude photography (and of occasionally both genders, I might add). When I was a kid, of course, the photo magazines shared with National Geographic the honor of being banned from the school library. The last time I saw nudes in a contemporary Anglo-Saxon chronicle, they generated angry letters from parents preserving the innocence of their children.

i was really only speaking to those who suggested those things. didn't mean to sound like i

was lumping every single man who responded here in with my post. i just don't like the

juvenile giggling syndrome that sometimes permeates around here when the subject of

nudes in photography pops up. nudes are completely a part of photography just like

photographs of flowers or landscapes. accept it and move on.

"they generated angry letters from parents preserving the innocence of their children."

 

I never understood this kind of mentality. You can't walk into a museum of art and not see

nudity. What do these parents tell their children when they look into a mirror and see

themselves nude? Preserving innocence, that to me would be allowing the body to be

viewed in a context where sex wasn't part of the equation to let children know that it's ok

to look the way they do. It's natural for children to be interested, it is afterall HUMAN

NATURE. The US is so hung up with nudity. It's really an unhealthy way to teach children to

tell them they should never see nudity and that they should be ashamed for it when they

do. But... violence is A-OK, honorable even. Don't you think that's weird?

 

France isn't the only country that routinely has nudity as a part of publication. There's

Mexico, Canada, Italy, Greece, Germany, and basically every other free country in the

world, even tiny little Luxemburg.

 

I urge people to bring their minds back up to at least to an eighteenth-century stage of

development.

"I never understood this kind of mentality."

 

What difference does it matter what anybody thinks? Why is it such a bad thing that parents wish their children to have their more's. Why is offense at nudity considered to be such a sin? If some dude wants his kids shielded from nudity, then let him. Tain't no thang unless one has a hidden agendo. It seems others are all about parading about naked and taking naked lady pics. So what's wrong with folks being offended by this sort of behavior; why the offense when they meet up with equal and opposite? After all, it's the differences that make the world go around, isn't it? :) I notice "free thinkers" have only room for themselves in their understanding. :)

 

You see your values as valid, why can't the opposing view receive similar respect of validity?

 

I notice slippery slopes only apply to those who wish to ride them. :)

I remember when the book "Show Me" came out and was praised in the photography press and discussed at the Wilson Hicks Photojournalism Conference at the University of Miami. It was a beautiful book with beautiful photographs. Here, read all about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_Me!

"Why is offense at nudity considered to be such a sin?"

 

Should one shun God's creation? If you would like to talk about sin I can go there too.

Would these parents sheild their children's eyes from looking at the Sistine Chapel inside

the Vatican itself? Ever been there? You can't look anywhere without seeing nudity.

 

Nudity isn't the problem, the context of the nudity is. And what the poster I replied to

described inside National Geographic magazines is nothing to sheild from the eyes of a

child. That's just FREAKY! It says more about the parent's misgivings than it does about

National Geographic.

and one more thing,

 

"If some dude wants his kids shielded from nudity, then let him. Tain't no thang unless

one has a hidden agendo."

 

Because someone wishes to shield thier childs eyes from National Geographic magazines

inside a LIBRARY, then they should tell their children that they aren't allowed to view those

magazines. But, because these QUAKERS complained about nudity inside the magazines

which were a documentation of tribal life (EDUCATIONAL), other children were prevented

from LEARNING about tribal life in Africa or South America... where ever the locale was

that was documented inside National Geographic.

 

And if parents want their children to learn about healthy nudity concerning nudity in the

ARTS in a classroom situation then those kids ought to be able to learn and study this

without fear from some closed minded individual. Imagine a class about ART that couldn't

show the Statue of David. Travesdy.

The part of the question nobody answered: "Is it simply about surrounding myself with beautiful unclothed women? Who knows - I don't for sure. How do pro photographers feel about this part? Are there any personal feelings which you have to push aside during a pro nude shoot? Never having tried it I would imagine that there might be, although obviously we would remain professional to the end, but I wonder what thoughts are in the back of a photographers mind during shoots."

 

Having shot nudes a load of times let me take a shot at this. Shooting nudes is really quite hard. Concern for the picture and sensitivity to my model(s) makes me work very hard indeed. As there has been so much nude work around I find myself working doubly hard to not to be the guy who shoots one more grimacing girl smoking a cigarette in an abandoned building with blood on her. (Apologies if I just offended someone.)

 

I usually appreciate the beauty of my models or I would not choose them. Sometimes they are hot as hell and for me to maintain that I look at them in totally scientific way would be a lie. Sometimes it is this sexual tension that leads me to the better picture. Sometimes it deters me from my goal. I have never come-on to a model and won't. To me it is just as unprofessional as if a doctor did it. I have had models come-on to me and I remained polite and professional. I have dated a couple of my models in the past but then I am not married and neither were they. I did not hire them because I was looking for a date. A photographer, like any person working with the public, meets plenty of people. We just have a license to stare for a bit. Peter Hegre, Richard Avedon, Stieglitz all married women who modeled nude for them. So much for clinical disinterest in the model.

 

You ask - "What were friends and families opinions of photographers starting out in the field of fine art nude - were any concerns overcome after a while?"

 

Some of my friends disapprove of my nude work. Some are offended by nudity period. I consider this attitude narrow-minded and illogical but they are entitled to it. If you have a wife, she should probably be involved in the process until you are absolutely sure she is comfortable with it. As to my friends...Most of the men are envious and the women intrigued, if the questions they ask are any indication of their true feelings about this work. I do not try and explain to the men that this is hard work and I find most people think photography is easy anyway. I am certainly not going to feed them some line like I heard one photographer say. When asked about the nudity he said "All I see is the light. I don't even see the model as nude." I won?t call him a liar but if this is true he could use some sensitivity training. I think someone should have hit him with a wet sock.

 

I very much appreciate what Zoe said about clothing. All clothing is a uniform. It speaks of a place in time, status, attitude, you name it. It acts as a modifier of facial expression, pose, set and light. There is an aspect of the nude that is, as she suggests, timeless.

 

....." and what drove them to undertake their first nude shoot when starting out."

 

Just do it. Three times. Then ask yourself why (if) you want to continue. It will be a far better question.

Well for sure this has generated a lot more response than I had expected. Many thanks to you all for your help.

 

I especially appreciate Zoe's opinions from a female photographers point of view. I do realise that of all the differences between figure photographers around the world the last thing that makes any difference to their photo's is their sex. Interestingly, though, I'd like to ask if she finds it easier to photograph female models being of the same sex. Does she believe that her models are more accepting and less sceptical of the photgrapher having a "hidden agenda" which I would believe some models may suffer from - in one or two cases quite justifiably I would think.

 

Personally, I also feel that clothes just make a shot look more complicated than it needs to be. One of my favourite images is the male and female torso shot by Andreas Bitesnich for his "nudes" publication. I love his "glossy" style and even being a hetero guy I feel his male nudes are exceptional.

 

When I look at a nude - male or female - I find myself looking through the picture and trying to work out what the subject is thinking and feeling - or at least what the photographer is trying to pretend that they're thinking or feeling! I feel that it's aleays far easier to "connect" in this way with a nude (of whichever sex) and that clothes make this practically impossible, distracting the eye from the interface between the viewer and the subject.

 

This is the challenge that I think I want to take on - building an image that the viewer can "connect" to. I think that this is what some of the replies above were suggesting, and as these suggestions confirm what has been going on in my head already I think I'm making the move for the right reasons.

 

I'm just a guy who worries too much about what other people think and don't want to be looked upon as a guy with questionable morals who likes taking "girly" pics. I'm sure that once I've been doing it for a while I'll get better at it and as you guys say, develop my own "style" by which time I'm sure those around me will accept that I am indeed doing this for the right reasons - until then I'll probably shoot a load of trash if I even get one good image from a whole shoot. I just hope that during my "trash" period, I don't develop the reputation for being a trash photographer who just does it to get girls out of their clothes - I have a young family so that would be the last thing on my mind. I wonder if it wold make sense to start out by shooting only male nudes for a year or so to "ease" myself into the genre.

 

I guess that no matter what the pictures turn out like, as long as I'm professional, respectful, sensitive - perhaps a little humorous and have some of my other portrait, clothed and male nude figure work to show the models, I should come out the other end "smelling" okay.

 

Thanks again guys (and girls)

 

Guy

"I especially appreciate Zoe's opinions from a female photographers point of view. I do

realise that of all the differences between figure photographers around the world the last

thing that makes any difference to their photo's is their sex. Interestingly, though, I'd like

to ask if she finds it easier to photograph female models being of the same sex. Does she

believe that her models are more accepting and less sceptical of the photgrapher having a

"hidden agenda" which I would believe some models may suffer from - in one or two cases

quite justifiably I would think"

 

Thanks. Although sometimes the photographer's sex does play a big role on how the

photo looks. I think women photograph women differently than men photograph women...

and men photograph men differently than women photograph men... not all the time, but

most.

 

I have worked with only one woman photographer in my life as a model. It was definitely

more relaxed for me. Although I can only speak for myself. Models do end up staying in

my guest room all the time though when they visit LA. So, I guess they are a little more

comfortable with me. It's a good question. One to ask my models I guess.

 

I do find it easier to photograph women than men. Mainly because it's damn hard to find a

male model! Men are way too shy about their bodies. I can get a female model every day of

the week if I had that much energy... but a male model, almost non-existant. I have

worked with ONE male model and I thought I was going to be completely nervous, and I

was at first, but once I started working it was just like photographing any of the female

models I've worked with. It might be a good idea for you to start by photographing men

first. It might be a bit more comfortable. But, that's up to you to judge how comfortable

you are. Good question. I also photograph women more because I know all about female

bodies, right? Seeing how I'm a woman.

 

I liked what Lee said about a "doctor / patient" relationship. Good analogy! And one that

certainly builds trust. Trust is the most important trait you can have when diving into this

genre. And that includes being able to tell a model when a pose isn't looking right so that

she doesn't see bad photographs of herself... like side rolls and butt dimples and stuff like

that, just choose your words wisely! lol. But, most of all, just so that the model doesn't

think you're a slimeball or something. ;-)