The Power and the Glory, Part II (see last May for Part I)

[mike_hitchen]

<p>

<p>@Zoe</p>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p> why do most female photographers also photograph female models then? they can't all be lesbians, i know i'm not. just wondering what you might think about that</p>

</blockquote>

<p>

<p>

 

</p>

</p>

<p >Any reference to ‘sexual attraction’ can be emotive and lead to several knee-jerk responses, whereas in truth it can have several aspects: an emotional response, an innate physiological response, feeling of desire, or ‘full-on’ sexual stimulation. <br>

 

<p > </p>

</p>

<p >There is interesting psychological research that when shown pictures of same-sex nudes, women have a different reaction to men. In short, women show signs of brain activity and bodily response indicative of an innate sexual response (not the same as attraction). In light of the previous paragraph, this does not mean that you are a lesbian (from your comment you have no desire for the woman not does it act as sexual stimulation). Men are far less likely to show these responses when shown pictures of naked men.<br>

 

<p > </p>

<p >You have to layer on this, society’s attitudes. The male’s penis is an overtly sexual organ when aroused, in a way that breasts or the female groin is not. This leads to the attitude that showing the penis is less acceptable, even when flaccid and the male nude by default becomes a less common subject for art.</p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<br>

 

<p>

<p>@Zoe:<br>

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>leave sex out of it and think about why. don't compare women to lines and curves and think about why</p>

</blockquote>

</p>

</p>

<p >But photography is all about light and, in turn, lines and shapes. So I am not sure how we can look at the nude as anything else. Iwill ignore the condescending tone of your post, but it sounds like you are about to enlighten us.</p>

<p > </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"</em><em>When you look at classic art or classic figure photographs, there's a reason the artist is making an image or sculpture of the person."</em> <strong>--Steve</strong></p>

<p>Photographs and other mediums have come a long way since <em>classical</em> figure photographs. Jock Sturges, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ryan McGinley have each come up with their own reasons. <br /> _______________________________________<br /> As John Kelly rightly points out, the inclusion of a nude in a photograph doesn't make it "a nude" any more than the inclusion of a person or a building in a street shot makes it a portrait or an architectural study.<br /> ______________________________________<br /> <em>"I have tried making figure photographs, and have generally failed miserably, precisely because I cannot find the reason for making the photograph."</em> <strong>--Steve</strong></p>

<p>I can understand. I've tried making landscape photographs and generally failed. That says everything about me, my interests, my motivations, and my skills and nothing about landscape photography.<br /> ______________________________________<br /> <em>"The statement that nudes entertain or tittilate I find totally false . . ."</em> <strong>--Steve</strong></p>

<p><em>Totally</em> false? The limits of any medium or genre are the limits of the practitioner or viewer.</p>

<p>For each photograph you've posted that you think is not about sex, I could probably find a viewer for whom it is (at least partially) about sex and another photo of a nude subject by a different photographer that is much more clearly about sex.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Lannie, whatever you mean by (a person) being "more naked", I feel it is hardly a question of revealing more or less of the body, but more the manner the artist employs in showing a normally hidden side of a person and his success at doing that (like in Mapplethorpe's final series, in which in an outoportrait he is placed with his hand resting on a skeleton-headed cane. A bit theatrical, perhaps, but very powerful).</p>

<p>The shot you reference does absolutely nothing for me in that sense. I agree with Steve and Julie in their assessment of it. What does applying lipstick in some clichéd manner have to do with the rest of an image of a pretty young woman, posing on some sort of countertop. The image has the title, "Deep thoughts", which I also find very "forced", if not completely incongruous.</p>

[steve_swinehart]

<blockquote>

<p>Photographs and other mediums have come a long way since classical figure photographs. Jock Sturges, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ryan McGinley have each come up with their own reasons. <br /><br />

 

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Gee ...thanks for the art history lesson - I was totally unaware of that - I included a figure done by Maplethorpe precisely for that reason. You have misinterpreted (or I have been unclear) as to what I mean by classic figure photograph - by that I mean a photograph that includes a figure that adds to the photograph in an artististic sense - AND NOT a photograph done by a specific photographer or within a defined time frame.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>For each photograph you've posted that you think is not about sex, I could probably find a viewer for whom it is (at least partially) about sex and another photo of a nude subject by a different photographer that is much more clearly about sex. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Okay - you win. I don't know every viewer of photographs and their thoughts or every photographer who might be taking figure photographs and their motivations. </p>

<p >

<p>

<p>

<p >

<p >

 

</p>

</p>

</p>

</p>

</p>

 

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>I regret that the posts of small in-line versions of "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe" and "Olympia" by Manet were deleted, but I assume that most viewers know these two famous paintings--or can find them very quickly on the web.</p>

<p>In retrospect, I almost wish that I had not posted the question that I did, but had instead addressed the issue as to why much of European proper society reacted so viscerally against these two masterpieces by Manet--but that would have left us in the field of painting, not photography. I cited the Phelps picture, and later the inverted "Frida" picture by Francois B on this site, because they differ so much on the matter of degree of eye contact--not simply because they differ so massively in terms of what is on display. I still believe that the degree of eye contact might figure into the analysis, while admitting that it is hardly the only variable. (As for the cheap shots against the Phelps nude, I can only say that I think that it is effective and well-done. It is hardly a "cheap" nude, and it certainly is not so by virtue of what it shows, if only because it really shows so very litte.)</p>

<p>Let me get back to the eye contact issue, which coud be a question unto itself. I can only speculate as to why Manet's two masterpieces in question created such a scandal. Perhaps the demure model, looking away from painter or photographer, is purely an object--even if she is the Virgin Mary shown displaying a breast. The model looking directly at the artist (in either medium), by contrast, is no mere sex object, or at least is less passively so. That is only one thought that comes to mind, however, and probably not even the major factor in trying to answer the question as I did indeed post it.</p>

<p>I certainly have to disagree that the "nude" degenerates into "nakedness" simply based on the quality of the photo. Indeed, I am not sure that there is any such "degneration," and certainly not in every case.</p>

<p>If we go to Robert Graves' famous poem, "The Naked and the Nude," we actually get quite a different interpretation:</p>

<p>For me, the naked and the nude<br />(By lexicographers construed<br />As synonyms that should express<br />The same deficiency of dress<br />Or shelter) stand as wide apart<br />As love from lies, or truth from art.<br /><br />Lovers without reproach will gaze<br />On bodies naked and ablaze;<br />The Hippocratic eye will see<br />In nakedness, anatomy;<br />And naked shines the Goddess when<br />She mounts her lion among men.<br /><br />The nude are bold, the nude are sly<br />To hold each treasonable eye.<br />While draping by a showman's trick<br />Their dishabille in rhetoric,<br />They grin a mock-religious grin<br />Of scorn at those of naked skin.<br /><br />The naked, therefore, who compete<br />Against the nude may know defeat;<br />Yet when they both together tread<br />The briary pastures of the dead,<br />By Gorgons with long whips pursued,<br />How naked go the sometime nude!<br /><br /><br />The last line is a devastating rebuttal of the pronouncement of the superiority of any particular artistic representation and interpretation of the human form, although I do not know to what extent art criticism entered into Graves' reflections. One line is particularly instructive, however: they (the naked and the nude) "stand as wide apart as love from lies, or truth from art."</p>

<p>I rather think that the very formal and detached artistic nude might at timess be the falser construct, and I get some comfort from the fact that not only Phelps but Graves see more honesty in what one might call the "naked nude."</p>

<p>In any case, I want to thank Jim Phelps for risking so much of himself in allowing his photos to be subjected to such sometimes brutal commentary. Photo.net is not always a friendly place for those who invite us to think, whether with words or images.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[steve_swinehart]

<blockquote>

<p>As for the cheap shots against the Phelps nude, I can only say that I think that it is effective and well-done. It is hardly a "cheap" nude, and it certainly is not so by virtue of what it shows, if only because it really shows so very litte.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>To each his own. What is "effective" about it? How is it effective and why? Well done? In what sense, the exposure is correct? What is the reason behind the photograph? If you haven't read or are not familiar with <em>Wynn Bullock Photographing the Nude: The Beginnings of a Quest for Meaning </em>I'd suggest reading or re-reading it.</p>

<p>Then - get back to me on the quest for meaning of the cited photograph.</p>

<p ><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wynn-Bullock-Photographing-Nude-Beginnings/dp/0879051701/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271861894&sr=8-6"> </a></p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"</em><em>Gee ...thanks for the art history lesson"</em> <strong>--Steve</strong></p>

<p>Sarcasm duly noted.</p>

<p><em>"Okay - you win."</em> <strong>--Steve</strong></p>

<p>This isn't a competition. It's a discussion. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder, so I'll steer clear of you. There are plenty who want to share ideas here and not beat each other up with attitude.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>When I try to create a posed portrait, I feel completely naked. Does that also count?</p>

<p>Seriously.... Like with any style of photography, nudes is a wide category. It's kind of hard to discuss it as being one. Some nudes are indeed only about curves, shapes. Some are playing with the fact that a lot of men are easily aroused by seeing an undressed woman. Some play to the effect, some play with the effect, some do not have that effect at all. [steve has fine examples of photos that indeed do fit in the latter category. The photo in the topic start, no idea where it fits.... deep thoughts did not help].<br>

In many ways no different than the difference in different photojournalists shooting for different audiences, wedding photographers, nature photographers and landscape-ists.... Different intents make different photos, and I do not think nudes are a special category as such.</p>

<p>By the way, Zoe, leaving sex out of it is pure silliness, a large portion of nude photography is made playing with the effects of sexuality. It is part of the photographer's intent and it can be done very properly too. And, for me, sexual references do not degrade anything, to deny sex as part of normal life is asking to be extinct. Of course, it depends massively on how it is done.</p>

<p>Back to the topic start: a good portrait of a fully dressed person can be more naked (emotionally nude?) than many portraits of undressed people. In that sense, I'd agree some photos can appear more naked than others. Vulnerability, as Lanny quotes in the topic start, is one of the things, but it can also be a certain flair of invulnerable directness. Some photos make the viewer feel naked as well.<br>

This level of more or less naked, I don't believe it's related to a lack of clothes....</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"It is hardly a 'cheap' nude, and it certainly is not so by virtue of what it shows, if only because it really shows so very litte.</em> <strong>--Lannie</strong></p>

<p><strong>Lannie</strong>, I put less emphasis (as photographer and viewer) on what details are shown* than on what is <em>expressed</em> . . . though what is expressed can certainly be affected by the details shown. I can imagine <strong>no rule of thumb</strong> that will cover a correlation between what is shown (do I see a vagina, a nipple, a penis?) and whether I experience nudity or nakedness (to use your distinction). There are plenty of "cheap" nudes that show little and plenty of good photographs that are explicit.</p>

<p>I'm working on a pair of nudes at the moment (to be shown together). One seems to be working better when I crop just above the penis, leaving it out. The other seems more expressive to me as a full frontal nude, including the entire body. I think of them as portraits, not nudes or nakeds, though nudity and nakedness are involved integrally. Again, to use your distinction, I think there is an aspect of nudity in each and an aspect of nakedness in each. Where I'm choosing to leave the penis out, the expression of the face and surroundings seem stronger without it. Where I'm leaving it in, it obviously seems significant to what I want to show and express. <em>Some</em> of my considerations are purely compositional as well.</p>

<p>I disagree with you and Graves on the instructiveness of his line that [nude and naked] <em>"stand as wide apart as love from lies, or truth from art."</em> Sometimes they do stand apart. Sometimes there's a lot of overlap and a very fine line between them. Sometimes they are inseparable. Neither is more true or more art. Both can be lies. And lies can be art.<br /> <br /><br /> __________________________________<br /> *I've thought a lot about <em>erect</em> penises. ;))) It does seem to me that showing an erect penis will likely strike certain chords and act in a strongly sexual manner. That is by no means a given. I have sought to work against that type and have a couple of erections in my body of work. But, even in working a bit against type, I am conscious of the type, the expectations, and the associations and prefer not to be in denial about them.</p>

[markjordan]

<p>Personally I have never looked at any nude photo of a female, whether partially nude or fully nude, artistic or in a magazine ad, and NOT had a sexual thought of some kind. I am a heterosexual man and they were women. These are just the facts of nature. If one denies that, they simply have no understanding of nature or the human male. The photos in men's magazines are more nude than lets say photos on here due to brightness of the studio lights and positioning of the model. As well, many of those photos display all of the female body. Other than that I don't see any other thing that would make one nude more nude than another. When the female body is in subdued lighting or partially covered so there is mystery involved than it is actually more sexually attractive than a full nude in bright light. Does that mean it is more nude in the mind? Is that what we mean here? A female in a bikini is always more provocative than one fully nude walking around. Not that I am actually contributing anything to this discussion, but these are some things to consider when you have a particular goal in mind with nude photography. What is it you want the person viewing to feel?</p>

[luis_g]

<p> Any time a person poses for another, a human <em>transaction </em>takes place. The resulting image contains traces of the dynamics of this transaction. What is the nature of the transaction in the image Lannie provided (Lannie, in the future, please furnish the URLs to the pix)?</p>

<p>In the Phelps image, the subject looks more comfortably nude than naked. Very much aware of her own image, and to a palpable degree, controlling it from prior experience. The lighting in that picture seems like more a question of quantity than quality. </p>

<p> I can understand where Steve's questions and comments are coming from.</p>

<p>Jock Sturges, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ryan McGinley, Man Ray, C.Sherman and many others invented their own language regarding the nude, which is why theirs stand out.</p>

<p> </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Lannie, I am sorry that you consider some subjective artistic criticism as being "cheap shots". We can only learn from the percerptions of others to our images. I do hope Jim is reading the comments on the image you chose, as they are not brutal (unless honesty can be so qualifed) but sincere expressions meant to inform the photographer how his images are interpreted. You have not explained (unless I misssed something, and I am sorry if I did) why you reacted to it in the way you did, other than the fact that the nude seemed to you "naked" even though not fully so. I see little of her hidden personal nature (naked revelation) in the photograph. Others might.</p>

<p>One thing that bugs me is that strong critricisms are not often made in portfolios. Are we all trying to be politically correct (in our perception of some show-and-tell reason for the site)? I would personally welcome one negative critique on my own (albeit partial) portfolio here as being fully equal to many many more positive ones lacking in supporting analysis. A critique is important in really understanding how some others honestly react to one's work. A negative appraisal need not be agreed with, but it permits a greater possibility of adding to the photographer's objectives and approach than tens of laudatory, unqualified, ones.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, critiques (honest, brutal, or otherwise) are best left to the pages of a person's portfolio. It's been explained to us on various occasions that examples that illustrate philosophical points are welcome on this forum, but that this forum is not the appropriate venue for critiques of specific individual works. I appreciate that difference: between discussing ideas and illustrating them with photos on the one hand, and critiquing someone's work on the other.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>I happen to like Jim Phelps' photo, but the thread is not really about his photo. I am trying to plumb the psychological depths of our <strong><em>varying </em></strong>reactions to the nude form as captured in a photograph. I would like to find a theoretical foundation for understanding these varying reactions, even though I know that I will never find it. There are simply too many variables that affect persons' perceptions of photos--of all kinds.</p>

<p>Arthur, I think that your post of 10:34 a.m. is dead on as to what gives us these varying reactions--even though Mapplethorpe does not do it for me as much as for you. You have nonetheless come the closest, I believe, to offering an answer that we can all live with: it certainly is not merely about what is shown, as Fred and others have likewise said. Rather, it is, as you say, about "the manner the artist employs in showing a normally hidden side of a person and his success at doing that." The Phelps photo was a trigger for me, not necessarily a paradigmatic case of the "naked nude," if we may speak of such. It does not even show a "normally hidden side." It nonetheless evokes something in me that bespeaks art and not merely lust, even though it is hardly Jim's best--and it raised the question for me, for reasons that even I do not know. It provoked me to think above all else, and that is good enough for me to want to include it.</p>

<p>John, you are surely right that the Manet is not a nude by virtue of having a nude figure in it. Even so, it would not have turned out to have been so interesting for a social theorist such as myself without that figure in it, for then society might have ignored the painting--and I would never have been puzzled to find that it provoked a minor scandal of sorts in the art community of that epoch. I am still puzzled by that. Even so, the "Luncheon on the Grass" combined with "Olympia" (which is more along the lines of what most persons typically call a "nude") together seem to share some of the boldness and insouciance which account for the power of his work. What else they evoke is not clear--they might come closer to addressing some of the issues of "The Power and the Glory" thread of May, 2009--the power of the public nude, that is, whether "glorious" or not.</p>

<p>Luis, please accept my apologies for not including the URLs. I posted inline 511-pixel-wide photos, which were deleted.</p>

<p>There are certainly so many good posts to respond to, but, alas, I am at work and cannot begin to address them all. . . .</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"</em><em>It nonetheless evokes something in me that bespeaks art and not merely lust . . . "</em> <strong>--Lannie</strong></p>

<p>I don't qualify <em>lust</em> with "mere". Lust is significant. Art and lust needn't exclude or oppose each other. Much art is born of lust and is about it, sexual and otherwise. </p>

<p>[Lust, desire, longing, Eros . . . all related . . . and all related to the creative.]</p>

[luis_g]

<p> Regarding Mapplethorpe, in most of his pictures, even when wearing clothes, he is naked.</p>

<p>http://www.mapplethorpe.org/portfolios/self-portraits/?i=5</p>

<p> One thing that shines through in Mapplethorpe's pictures, specially his nudes, is the idea of trust. It says something about the nature of his transactions with his subjects, and it is more pronounced in pics where there are multiple figures in the frame, but here is an example with just one in the frame:</p>

<p>http://www.mapplethorpe.org/portfolios/female-nudes/?i=2</p>

<p>In many of Cindy Sherman's pictures, her nudes are not naked. The fake boobs, etc, in fact conceal Sherman's own nudity while revealing the nudity in the character she is portraying.</p>

<p> </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>"I appreciate that difference: between discussing ideas and illustrating them with photos on the one hand, and critiquing someone's work on the other." (Fred)</p>

<p>It's a fairly fine line, Fred, and perhaps not explained well enough by the Forum leader such as to confirm or not your personal thoughts on whether a critique of a meaning of an image is valid in this forum or not. I think we are often very close on photography and perception of images, but I see no difficulty in accepting opinions that differ much from mine in regard to my own work and would hope that others might feel the same way about their own work . I hope I can maintain an open mind on how my work is perceived. My critique was not of the photographer and his oeuvre, but of whether his image contributed to the philosophcal point raised by Lannie or not. Lannie may well be seeing a hidden aspect of the subject that I may not be able to.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"I see no difficulty in accepting opinions that differ much from mine in regard to my own work and would hope that others might feel the same way about their own work . I hope I can maintain an open mind on how my work is perceived." </em></p>

<p>Me too, Arthur. In other venues on this site. I love critique and participate fully in giving and receiving them, both positive and negative. But this is a straw man. I wasn't talking about not accepting different opinions, nor do I think was Lannie. We're talking about where critiques are best given on PN. I agree that your statements about Phelps's photo are related to the philosophical ideas of the thread. Some other posters' comments are more opinions of his work <em>per se</em>. I wasn't questioning what you said about the Phelps photo. I was questioning what you said about critiques, in the context of this forum.</p>

[darryl-taylor]

<p>As is usual when intelligent people begin to discuss concepts and ideas; it's all getting quite deep, so I'll inject a comment from the shallow end.<br>

With regards the original question as to the apparent difference between a picture of a nude, and a picture of a naked person, a simple grammatical rule springs to mind. For the most part naked/nakedness/nude/nudity etc. are interchangeable, but you don't hear of prisoners or victims being forcibly stripped nude. I would assume that this property of the word naked can affect our perception of the term, so that being naked is sometimes considered less a matter of choice than appearing nude</p>

[mizore]

<p>A couple of things. There have been women photographers who took male nudes/nakeds, but these were either wife or husband or employer of employee, if I remember correctly. The other thing is that the penis give us too much information. A nude woman's state of actual sexual arousal is Mu. You don't have to resolve the sexual tension.</p>

<p>One of the most oddly striking photographs taken as porn that I've ever seen was a clothed woman with an erect penis going horizontally at about chin level. The guy was reduced to just his cock (the photo was an ad for a video). I wish I'd kept a copy of it because it did some things that I haven't seen more official photography do. I didn't find it erotic as much as moving in a way I didn't expect to be moved -- and the clothed woman and the male reduced to the erect cock was about male vulnerability for me. </p>

<p>The other thing is that overtly sexual or not, nudes will be sensual -- that's the largest sensory organ we've got exposed there. It may be harder for men to be that vulnerable in front of women.</p>

<p>I also have a friend who has no interest in women sexually who does look at female nudes in photographs at least occasionally. There's more to the human body than the genitalia. He posted a link to a pair of fashion photographs -- one the women naked in heels; the other, in the same poses, in high fashion clothes. To him, the photos showed a collaboration between the women's care of their bodies and how those bodies could display the clothes. The clothes needed the good looking bodies to look good.</p>

[zoewiseman]

<p>@Lannie @Fred @Mitch<br>

re: why would women shoot nudes of other women<br>

because the medium has been dominated by men for centuries and some women feel that the overlying aspect of who and what a woman is has only been represented from a male perspective. men who are trying to know what being a woman is and missing the mark sometimes, not all the time, but a lot of the time. by asking my questions about why and trying to make you think about it I wasn't being an asshole. i was trying to get all of you men to think about it for a minute from a woman's perspective. <br>

i don't try to sexualize images ... though if someone is turned on by them that's something i can't help. i think those same people would also be turned on by a revelon advertisement. freedom in all it's aspects is sexy and freedom of expression is luscious. if that is a turn on, bravo. but strength is also very flattering. to think that the main objective to make a photograph of a nude woman, or man, is purely from a lustful point of view is shallow. <br>

women have been defined by men through photographs for so long that even women are confused about who they are and what their roles as women should be. some women photographers who shoot nudes are claiming their rights as women back from what they've been told through visual stimulation on how they should be. some women don't think that's who or what they are and the representations sometimes leads to frustration. <br>

to say that sexuality is the only aspect of nude photography misses the many underlying themes and genres of photography as a whole. some photographers actually have ideas they want to convey which could be conveyed through centuries of the human condition. when clothing is introduced to these ideas that time stamps the image, just like bellbottoms and platform shoes timestamps the 60s and 70s. a nude on the other hand has no timestamp. it is timeless. photographs by anne brigman or say man ray are even appreciated in today's time because they are nude and the theme of the photograph is relatable even in our technological driven age.<br>

i also think that only pointing out the lines and curves of a woman's body only objectifies women... meaning turning them into a still life like a pear or an apple, or lets say pineapple as that's my favorite fruit. while there are really amazing aspects of abstract photography in that sense, and i've done some myself, to say that it couldn't be accomplished photographing men also is wrong. sure, men are more straight than curved, but that just means you have to adjust your thought process and think in terms of straight lines instead of curvatures. that's not so sexy for some men, i know, but humor me. i haven't yet progressed in my own photography to where i photograph men (i have worked with exactly two men) but i'm certain that my views of men would be very different to how men see other men. the same as how women see other women. <br>

so anyway, that's SOME not all of what i'm talking about. <br>

have a beautiful day.</p>

[zoewiseman]

<p>I meant @Mike instead of @Mitch... sorry. had an email open from a friend named Mitch and the M's clashed.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"The other thing is that the penis give us too much information."</em></p>

<p>Not in all cases, by any means. Some men can feel sexual and not become erect. Additionally, I shoot many middle-aged and older men. Many of them <em>wish</em> their penises were such purveyors of information, but without Viagara, it doesn't seem to happen, whether they're turned on or not. A viewer may make an assumption about sexual content from a non-erect penis and it would be just that . . . an assumption.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Zoe</strong>, thanks for the response.</p>

<p><em>"men who are trying to know what being a woman is and missing the mark sometimes, not all the time, but a lot of the time."</em></p>

<p>I've rarely had the feeling that male photographers who photograph nude women are trying to know what being a woman is. The photos most often are showing me (and I think the photographers are aware of this) how this man sees this woman (or women in general), from <em>his</em> perspective, not trying to adopt the woman's perspective. I'm sure some do, as you suggest, and it's an interesting suggestion!</p>

<p>I have purposely posed nude for some of my male models because I did want to find out a bit about their perspective. But the photos I make are still very much my own. I assume some men photographing nude women are nude themselves when they're doing the photographing.</p>

<p>I agree with you that the straighter lines of males can accomplish what the curvature of females does, in the right hands.</p>

<p>I don't worry that nude studies (of either men or women), studies that concentrate on form or line, objectify them. Some much more narrative photographs of each objectify them much more. Look at the Nudes section of the critique queue here, you'll see many non-studies that are very objectifying. Look at the street section. You'll see people treated as objects all over the place. The genre doesn't objectify, the photographer does. Sometimes objectification takes place purposely. I've done it because it has expressed what I was feeling at the time. It can be quite real.</p>

<p>I don't take your not sexualizing images as "a woman's perspective". I see it as <em>your</em> perspective. I don't necessarily think men look at other men the way women look at other women.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>"Some women photographers who shoot nudes are claiming their rights as women back from what they've been told through visual stimulation on how they should be. Some women don't think that's who or what they are and the representations sometimes leads to frustration." (Zoe)</p>

<p>Absolutely. Male photographs of women have unfortunately, except in the most imaginative of work, become clichés. Seeing women photographing women is refreshing. There may be some stereotypes in that also, but it at least gives another view, another abstraction. Visit the <a title="http://www.figuremodels.org" onclick="window.open(this.href); return false;" onkeypress="window.open(this.href); return false;" href="http://www.figuremodels.org/">Figuremodels.org</a> site (re-Anne Brigman images) or <a href="http://www.artnudes.com/" target="_blank">http://www.artnudes.com</a>, if you want to see some different approaches to nude photography.</p>