What makes the nude into a work of art?

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Arthur, since we cannot seem to deduce what makes for a truly artistic nude, perhaps we would do well to proceed inductively: find some truly artistic nudes and do some serious analysis into what makes them great--in the same way that nude paintings or sculpture have been analyzed. Something like that is ostensibly what is being done on the photo forums, but, if so, then it is not typically being done very well. (One more likely gets "Well done!" or "Congratulations.," although not always in so many words.)</p>

<p>Even so, if we did pursue an inductive approach, I believe that we would find that examples offered as ostensibly "great artistic nudes" would likely involve quite a range of styles as well as quite a range of erotic content. In other words, though I have spent a lot of time trying to establish that the nude form is not considered inherently sexual across all cultures (more precisely, not to the same degree in all cultures), the appeal of the nude for most persons is admittedly linked to the erotic content. That is for me a simple (but obvious) admission that most persons do not view nudes for their artistic value, but solely for their erotic content. This realization is a bit disconcerting to me, even if it is obvious, since the last thing that I wanted to do was to start a thread that might come to be an analysis of what makes for "artistic porn " I am sickened by that very thought, although I do not doubt that the best<strong><em> sellers</em></strong> of soft porn on the web have tried to come up with some formula for doing precisely that--make porn more interesting and beautiful and therefore more enticing, under the rubric of being more "wholesome" and less pornographic. It is yet porn, in spite of the superficial makeover. When one considers that the etymology for "porn" is closely related to the ancient Greek biblical concept of <em>porneia</em>, the word for illicit or even evil sexual behavior, one wants to distance oneself from both the material and label increasingly given to it.</p>

<p>As for your point about male nudes, I think that we are not likely to see much change there due to the fact that eros and aesthetics appear to be strongly related where appreciation of the human form is concerned--even when we are not conscious of it. (This observation would apply to the covered or dressed figure, not only the nude one.) Therefore we can probably expect most males not to be too interested in photographs of males, even though we all acknowledge that a pure appreciation of light and form would surely make it possible to appreciate the beauty of a form for which we feel no sexual attraction.</p>

<p>I keep thinking that Luis G. will weigh in with some insights, given his considerable knowledge of art history and criticism, but Luis has pretty much dismissed the issue up front with the statement that what makes a nude into art is "the same thing that makes a portrait, landscape, street view, architectural, etc. into art. The nude is not exclusive in this sense."</p>

<p>I am not satisfied with that conclusion, but one has to concede that Luis might be right and that there is very little more to be said. I actually think that there is much more to be said, but, given my own inadequate background in photographic art history, I am coming up pretty dry at this point.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>We'd need a pretty big international sample to call the nature/nurture debate here, but I think it's safe to say that a lot of the shame that comes with realization is ingrained in our DNA.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Zack, that is the view that I have been arguing against, but clearly I could be wrong. I shall have to rethink. You have certainly identified the crux of the question.</p>

<p>I'm pretty much "written out" for tonight!</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I'm noticing something. This discussion gets progressively more and more academic and intellectual. Not that there's anything wrong with that if that's the direction desired. The original question was a photographic one, however. What makes the nude photograph "art"? It might be worthwhile to consider actual photographic qualities and mechanisms that we use when working with nude subjects. The rest is certainly of interest, but also feels like a safe escape from a tough photographic subject.</p>

<p>I'll work the Greeks in here, since male nudity has been mentioned. They were much more open both to homosexuality and to images and statues of nude men. What's up with that? But that question is likely fodder for a Classics or Ancient Philosophy class. To tie it to photography, I've for a long time noticed that many traditional photographs of male nudes (and especially work by gay commercial photographers) adopt that Greek look and pose, pretty much as a cliché and almost as if there's no other acceptable way. It's kind of been the default in many ways. It's one of the reasons I resist going in that direction in my own work, and when I have gone in that direction I do it with an awareness, I hope. It's actually one of the reasons I've moved away from the kind of objective shape/form/light approach to nudity that's being discussed in this thread and am much more interested in exploring narratives, staging, and story-telling with my nudes, including the relationship I feel personally to both sexuality and sexual orientation. I am conscious of working with social commentary relative to male bodies (particularly aging ones) as well.</p>

<p>So, a very short answer to the original question about what makes a nude photograph art is understanding and absorbing but also going beyond the default or traditional approach. I think that works for other subjects like landscapes and houses and portraits as well.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>[Clarification]: The above final paragraph is, indeed, a short answer and just a beginning. There are many more photographic considerations to working with nudes, of course. I just thought I'd start a photographic ball rolling with something from my own experience of working with male nudes.</p>

<p>_______________________________</p>

<p>Arthur, what you say rings a bell for me (that we are unable to consider the human body in ways similar to other subjects). My mind goes to <em>intimacy</em>. We have such an intimate relationship with our own and others' bodies that its uniqueness and fascination for us makes sense. Which leads me to another photographic question? If we do feel an intimacy with the human body, how do we photograph that or convey or establish that in a photograph? That might help answer Lannie's question as well. What photographic mechanisms can we use to express this intimacy we feel?</p>

[indraneel]

<blockquote>

<p>I'm noticing something. This discussion gets progressively more and more academic and intellectual.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As I said half a page ago... we don't want to be too personal... Do you really expect some to admit they liked the lighting and composition in "Vampire Sorority Babes" or "Attack of the Coed Cannibals"?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Do you really expect some to admit they liked the lighting and composition in "Vampire Sorority Babes" or "Attack of the Coed Cannibals"?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Don't know about that. But I would like to hear some of the different ways people approach creating nude photographs and why. Or why they don't create nude photographs and whether that's an active and purposeful decision or just not an interest.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Lannie, we probably shouldn't dismiss the female reaction to nudes (female or male) as they are an equally important part of the viewing audience. If I'm not mistaken, you referred mainly to the male reaction to male nudes. Some of the best photographers of the female nude are women., While I am not impressed with all her work (non nude), Bettina Rheims has done in my mind a few really impressive female nudes (providing an idea of the woman in an intimate way and some organic sensuality and nuanced eroticism), just as a number of male photographers have done very fine male nudes. I find it hard sometimes to separate erotic and aesthetic messages, as often the artistic nude cannot be fully appreciated fully without triggering some small or miore important erotic reaction in the viewer. That is far from being porn in my mind, and just a normal human response.</p>

<p>The way we view seems to depend upon national cultural and micro-cultural (various groups within a nation) outlooks, as well as trodden historical traditions. It may not be a good example, but women breast feeding in public of babies in many European countries rarely receives any negative reaction, and is considered quite everyday and normal, whereas the chance of a negative public reaction is more pronounced in my own overall culture (Canada) and I would imagine also in the US. That perception of nudity which may have an effect on how some look at our own bodies, and whether that may have an effect or not in seeing the human body in an artistic image.</p>

<p>Fred, I feel you are right in suggesting that context can be very important (story-telling, symbolism, intimateness, fantasy, etc.) in artistic nudes and that it depends a lot on why the nude is part of the image, central or not, and what relation it has to the rest of the image. His wondering about how we, who are very familiar with our own bodies - perhaps sometimes too familiar to be really creative or non-cliché? We seem to have set up some paradigms of vision that seem to control our approach to that - can effectively approach the photographing of that with which we are so involved, is capable of opening up an interesting avenue of discussion.</p>

<p>Edward Muggeridge (I realize his name is wrongly spelt here) investigated the human body in locomotion, using multiple photographs, and while his work is informative, often elegant, it is academic and possibly mostly not meant as artistic statements. But he did one thing that we should be able to do, given our intimacy with our own bodies. He looked at the human body in a way that had not been done before.</p>

<p>How many nudes are photographed directly above and looking down? Could that work in terms of some context of emotion, symbolism, interaction with other subject matter, etc.? Or the opposite angle, below, using a Brandtian deformation of perspective? Why? What for, one may ask? That is just part of the equation to develop, of course, and to confirm in an artistic rather than mechanistic sense. The familiarity with one's body should really allow us some insight into novel ways of repreesenting it, and its surroundings, that might confer on the image some artistic quality. One doesn't need to go to extremes, of course. Some of the younger Weston's (Cole?) photographs of nudes in a swimming pool are aesthetic, as is the simple but beautifully balanced nude portrait of Weston's mistress (Charis) in her ground seated position with intertwined limbs, or the simplicity and force of the reclining nubile nude of Emmanuel Bravo. Common but effectively used positions of the human body, quite remote from a more static Playboy centerfold. Knowing our bodies well should allow us the freedom to attempt novel approaches to exploring their beauty or mystery, interacting in novel ways with other subject matter to heighten the overall visual communication. The high percentage of banal photographs of nudes possibly suggests that we are either imprisoned by our inflexible viewpoints or too close to our subject matter to wish to think creatively about it, rather than applying either classical or more contemporary but too well trodden approaches. A part of what is art is its uniqueness.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>Lannie, we probably shouldn't dismiss the female reaction to nudes (female or male) as they are an equally important part of the viewing audience. If I'm not mistaken, you referred mainly to the male reaction to male nudes. Some of the best photographers of the female nude are women.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Arthur, I am sorry that I somehow edited out a portion of what I had written which argued along a similar line to yours. My point originally was that more heterosexual women do photos of women nudes than men do of men. I am sorry for the deletion and subsequent confusion.</p>

<p>In the part that I accidentally edited out, I also argued that the fact that heterosexual women often shoot other women indicates that sexual attraction is not likely to be a factor--there is simply an appreciation for light and form, so to speak. (I think that that last line survived the editing somehow.)</p>

<p>I also (for the record) have long argued that eros plays a role in aesthetics, even when it is not a matter of conscious intent. There is, of course, a great psychological distance between admiring a woman's form and using the image for the sake of explicit sexual stimulation, in my opinion. Not everything that has an erotic component is porn. My larger point is that we as straight males notice and appreciate women, whether they are nude or not. I am not sure that taking off that last flimsy layer of clothing has quite the significance that our culture places upon it.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[zack_zoll]

<blockquote>

<p><a name="00Z75w"></a><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2347092">Arthur Plumpton</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub5.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/2rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Jul 30, 2011; 12:15 a.m.<br>

... Common but effectively used positions of the human body, quite remote from a more static Playboy centerfold ...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Arthur, you may be surprised to know just how much strength and strain is required to hold some of those poses. As you know, what looks natural in two dimensions to the camera may not be natural in real life.</p>

<p>Of course, taking the time to set up fifteen lights sort of points back towards the 'static' argument :)</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>heterosexual women often shoot other women indicates that sexual attraction is not likely to be a factor--there is simply an appreciation for light and form, so to speak</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That heterosexual women may not have a sexual <em>attraction</em> to other women (and I think that's even a false assumption in some cases) doesn't mean that <em>sexuality itself</em> can't play a role. One can photograph and view sexually without having a sexual attraction. I can often feel the sexuality of photographs of women quite strongly even though I am not, per se, sexually attracted to women. Were I to photograph women more, I would certainly be on the lookout for a sexual component. I also find myself often very attracted to a woman's sexuality even though I am not sexually attracted to the woman. A lot of men probably couldn't relate to feeling attracted to another man's sexuality (as opposed to feeling a sexual attraction), mostly because they've learned to be hung up about getting too close to such things. People, however, are very multi-dimensional. "Heterosexual" and "homosexual" aren't nearly as cut and dry as they might seem.</p>

<p>And, even in cases where there is no sexual component (which is different from a sexual attraction) there can be other things beside an appreciation of light and form. There's energy. There's passion. There's intimacy. There's narrative. There's mystery. There's empathy. There's identification . . .</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Arthur, I meant to add also that I do not consider the undraped human form to be inherently indecent in the least--except by reference to existing cultural norms. In any case, the scantily clad figure is often much more titillating than the totally nude form, in my opinion. In other words, our common criteria for adjudging this or that mode of dress as decent or indecent have been remarkably arbitrary--and both historically and culturally relative, in my opinion. Even so, I do believe that we might be into some complicated psychological territory here, and I reserve the right to change my mind. I am also aware that my writings earlier this evening might not have been totally consistent with what I have written before. I am still searching about to find a coherent view that is defensible.</p>

<p>Tomorrow I hope to relate all of this back to Zack's view about a possible genetic basis for shame. If there is such a genetic basis, it certainly requires at the very least reflexive rationality and concomitant self-consciousness. How far it goes beyond that I do not know, but surely the fact that we do not have very much shame about the body before puberty suggests the possibility of some kind of continuing psycho-social development in the brain and in human behavior, moral sentiments, etc. This is all very tortuous and treacherous philosophical territory, however, in my opinion.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>You're right, of course, Fred. I made some hasty and inaccurate generalizations. What you have said is much more nearly defensible, I sincerely believe. As for gay and straight, I am quite certain that <em>nothing </em>is at all cut and dried where sexual orientation is concerned, and especially where women are concerned (from what I am told). I am no expert on such matters, of course, although finding out that my daughter was gay has impelled me to want to inquire into these issues in greater depth--as well as to be more careful about my pronouncements.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Julie H]

<p>A good description of woman's bodily experience is given by Vivian Sobchack in her book, <em>The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience</em> (1992). The qoute within her text is taken from an essay by Iris M. Young, <em>Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality</em> (1990):</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"… [Young] says, “An essential part of the situation of being a woman is that of living the ever present possibility that one will be gazed upon as a mere body, as shape and flesh that presents itself as the potential object of another subject’s intentions and manipulations, rather than as a living manifestation of action and intention.” … The feminine body is introceptively lived out less as “myself, my psyche” than as “me, my thing.” Thus, as a “thing,” it can be appropriated and possessed by others or it can be self-possessed. It has a “place” in which it is kept, positioned by others or protected and preserved for itself."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Note that she and I am not claiming that this is necessarily bad/good. However, women <em>know</em> this about how their bodies are perceived. Consequences or used of that knowledge work in many directions.</p>

<p>[Random observation: In medical schools, when students are uncomfortable cutting up a person, I'm told that it is sufficient to cover the face and the hands to turn it from a person into a body.]</p>

<p>Zack, I'm not the one who said anything about clothes adding to the allure of the otherwise nude body (I think it might have been Fred) but I'll support you with the following, taken from a footnote in Mary Roach's book <em>Bonk</em>:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"In 1998, a woman in Saline, Michigan, received a patent for a Decorative Penile Wrap intended to 'heighten sexual arousal of a male and female prior to intercourse.' The patent includes three pages of drawings, including a penis wearing a ghost outfit, another in the robes of the Grim Reaper, and one dressed up to look like a snowman. I tried to call the examiner listed on the patent, Michael A. Brown, but he has left the U.S. Patent and Trade Office. And who can blame him."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Also, the Tree of Life is, I believe, more correctly called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.</p>

 

[Julie H]

<p>Further ...</p>

<p>Is the porn/art divide (fluid (!) though it be) found in the genitals or the face? Is it in Masters and Johnson's vaginal movie camera or the gynocologists speculum, or is it in the gaping mouth and rolled eyes of the/a face?</p>

<p>When looking at a photograph of a sculpture of the Arcadian goat-god of lust (Pan) having sex with a goat [<em>Pan and Goat</em> from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Roman 1st century C.E.], I first study the very evident penis entering the rear-end of the recumbant goat. Hmmmm... but then I look at the face of Pan to see if this is really sex. Yes, his face does seem to be correspondingly expressive. (The goat has a rather resigned look on its face.)</p>

<p>When looking at Peter Hujar's <em>Bruce de Saint Croix,</em> 1976, in which the nude Bruce is seated, relaxed, in a hard backed chair holding his absolutely mammoth, erect penis in his right hand, I first admire the penis but I look to Bruce's face before reaching any conclusions about the pornographic sexuality of the picture. Bruce's face looks calm, contemplative if possibly just a wee bit pleased (or perhaps contented with his physical lot?). He does not look lustful. Though, as my eye then moves to his hands, the left hand, which is laid almost sacrementally on his abdomen, suggests a certain tension ...</p>

<p>If Bruce's face had been in orgasmic contortions, in an equally well-composed photo (this one is lovely), it could/would still be art, but I think it would then have to be "about" the orgasm and would stop being about anything else.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>The original question was a photographic one. . . . What makes the nude photograph "art"? It might be worthwhile to consider actual photographic qualities and mechanisms that we use when working with nude subjects. --Fred G.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Fred, since we do not all do nude photography, perhaps we might also ask what "actual photographic qualities and mechanisms" have others used in creating works that we find powerful, moving, and truly artistic.</p>

<p>My guess is that we are going to get into a lot more than discussions of photographic technique. We are inevitably going to have to get, I believe, into the minds of the photographic (and other) artists to try to analyze the idea or vision that he or she was trying to convey through the photo, painting, or sculpture.</p>

<p>In other words, since many persons can learn the techniques, what is it that great artists bring to the making of wonderfully artistic works in the genre under discussion, or in other related genres? (Classical nude paintings come immediately to mind.) Is that idea or vision different from that found in the making of landscapes, photojournalism, portraits, etc.? I think that we might find that it is.</p>

<p>In other words, I do believe that the subject affects the artistic vision in many, many ways. If this is so, then artistic nudes might indeed require something not found in other works of art.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[paul_goutiere]

<p>To be certain no one mistakes your nude photo for anything else but <strong>ART</strong> follow simple rules.<br /> Be sure the photos are in Black and White, model should be a nude woman.<br /> -In derelict building like a grubby old factory.<br /> -In forest against large tree root.<br /> -In old abandoned house.<br /> -Lying on a big rock on stormy sea coast.<br /> -Goose pimples.<br /> -Railroad tracks<br /> -Standing in water.<br /> -In front of old furniture.<br /> -Just show part of model, like the side of a breast or her knee.</p>

<p> </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>We seem to have moved off the subject of art as a more universal input/stimulus to one's mind and are considering sculptures or images that communicate sexual stimulation. The two often go together, although I think that most successful art nudes make lesser play on one's sexual response or sexual attraction, but highlight the aesthetics of the form or of the interaction of the human form with other compatible (smooth rounded rocks, for instance) or tension creating elements (jagged rocks, or surfaces with textures that are opposite to the body), animals, that can also suggest other things (story-telling, symbolism) that add to the art. How to accomplish that, rather than creating a static and clichéd human "object" is not easy and I can appreciate Zack's response to my use of the word static for Playboy centrefolds, etc., but I simply meant to convey the impression of the often viewed (and "object" making) approach to those albeit interesting nudes.</p>

<p>Was it Lannie who mentioned shame, or Zack, or someone else? I feel it is much less a question of genetics and more a question of cultural attribute. Had I been brought up in a family where at home the parents and children live together nude I might have more an attitude similar to those of some remote and beautiful African tribal villages where that is also the norm within the confines of their "house" (for them, village). But I wasn't. On the other hand, I don't belong to some sects or even quite widely spread cultural groups that feel shamed at seeing the human body nude. That is at least partly liberating, as it means little impediment is there to seeing the real person, or their form, or in creating a vision suggestive of art, contrary to just some shameful sight. A bit like the breast-feeding example I mentioned. More attention can be given to the subject, with little interacting psychological baggage to affect that perception.</p>

<p>Beauty is in the imagination as well as in an objective visual perception of human form. As a 17 year old, I worked one summer in an office in Toronto where the current female dress fashion was a sort of very loose fitting (but completely covering) type of dress, that only suggested but did not fully describe the body of the wearer. This was as stimulating if not more so than a close fitting apparel for adolescent sexual impulses and also close to being an art perception of form, as the actual form of the wearer was only occasionally and subtly exposed to the office view. I think it could be argued that the appearance of the clothed body could be as effective in an image of intended artistic content, as that of a nude body.</p>

<p>Sexual perception of nudes or imagined nude forms: As far as women's sexual reaction to the male body, it seems that it can be as strong as the male reaction to nude women, or the reaction of homosexual women to other women or men to other men. It is just not expressed as openly in society as the male reaction to a nubile pretty female. It is often maintained amongst women themselves, probably consequential upon their regional or national culture. Alas, I have not often been put in the role of sex object by the opposite sex, but did experience one occasion in a clothing store when the tailor was measuring me for a new pair of trousers on the usual small platform. I could see the look of a young lady waiting for service, as she noticed my profile (then strong legs and quite muscular hips) and expressed a "I would like to go for a coffee with you" look. It didn't happen (wasted opportunity for a then batchelor) but it was a learning experience in my perception of female public reactions and showed that men can be as much objectified sexually as their female counterparts. Good news perhaps for the survival of the human species.</p>

<p>I agree with Fred and others who seenm to believe that making nudes art is a question of context, not just the presence of the nude form. Developing that context is the art, and ignoring it is just a formula for another more ordinary image, however well photographed and titillating and useful that might be for photographer and viewer.</p>

<p>Paul, do I sense a small bit of cynicism, or just a practical list of the current mode of nude photography, that some of us wish to escape from (to make something akin to original art).</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Fred, since we do not all do nude photography, perhaps we might also ask what "actual photographic qualities and mechanisms" have others used in creating works that we find powerful, moving, and truly artistic.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Absolutely.</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>artistic nudes might indeed require something not found in other works of art.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Can you articulate some of the things you're thinking of.</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>what is it that great artists bring to the making of wonderfully artistic works</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think some secrets can be found in our descriptions ("great artists", "wonderfully artistic works"). Bring these photographers down to earth in order to start understanding them. Don't distance yourself from them too much. The words "figure" and "form" are used in this thread an awful lot as opposed to, say, "body." I wonder if the "great artists" thought of their nudes in terms of form or if there was't also a significant feeling for body at work which weaved with form. Form is, to a great extent, an objectifying notion (not necessarily in the bad sense of objectification). Body may be a little more down to earth, a little more intimately physical, something we can reach out and touch, which may be something worth considering in looking for your answer.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>artistic nudes might indeed require something not found in other works of art. --LK<br>

Can you articulate some of the things you're thinking of. --FG</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure, Fred. I was hoping that you might be able to help here with your creative mind, but I am not talking techniques here. I am talking about the main idea or even the whole point of making the photo. What mood did the artist want to capture? What context or location both framed the shot and helped to convey the main idea, etc.?</p>

<p>--Lannie<br>

.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Curiously, I was just browsing through the current Harper's Index and ran into this: 27% of all men have been photographed nude, as opposed to 23% of all women (According to a Playboy poll). My bet is that a lot of that 23% of the women have been photographed nude more than twice.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>but I am not talking techniques here. I am talking about the main idea or even the whole point of making the photo</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Lannie, the "whole point of making a photo" is MAKING A PHOTO. That involves technique. I'm the first to agree that ideas are important but I can't extricate them from what I'm doing, which is making a photo. For me, the technique and the idea are so intertwined that I can't separate them. I'd suggest to you that reorienting your way of thinking about idea and technique might be a way into this secret about nude photographs becoming art that you've been wondering about for the last few years.</p>

<p>As an example, for me, post-processing a photo of a nude is like caressing a lover, and that very much involves technique. And, as I explore different techniques, different visions and ideas come into play. Likewise as I have different ideas, different techniques come into play. But the ideas and photographic techniques are symbiotic. A photographic idea is one that WILL MANIFEST ITSELF via the photo, so <em>part of the idea is its photographic manifestation</em>, which will require my craft and technique.</p>

<p>The "mood" captured, for a photographer, may very well be captured in the photographer's own sensual (not sexual) relationship to dodging and burning (for example), an activity which is like a caress. He can't just put it into "mood" language. He may have to put it into photographic language. Photographic ideas and techniques are an integrated dialogue, dependent on each other, not distinct or independent grammars.</p>

<p>[We can talk about the ideas behind Impressionism for days. But until we integrate that talk with some sense of Monet's color palette, brushstrokes, and content (through which those ideas manifested), we don't come close to understanding the paintings and why they're art.</p>

<p>I don't know that you'll ever answer these questions about nude photographs for yourself (no, I'm not going to do it for you) without risking making these kinds of photographs. But I think you can give these questions a shot yourself.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Luis, and I wonder if a lot of the men have been photographed by themselves.</p>

<p>Julie brought up the interesting notion of women knowing their bodies are being gazed upon merely as bodies. (I think that "merely" does suggest some judgment about it to me, but I may be wrong. I'd have to read more than just the isolated quote).</p>

<p>I've always been amused by the discussions about gays in the military that often turn to the showers, which seems to be a major source of discomfort for a lot of the straight soldiers. The adrenalin seems to flow at the thought of confronting the enemy on the battlefield but they recoil at the idea of being looked at by the appreciating eye of a gay guy in the next stall. And make no mistake, we are looking! ;-)</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Why do we have to suggest in some cases that body is being neglected for form, when we photograph architecture and don't feel the need to say we are photographing a structure and not interpreting it as some form (and composition). Body is the subject matter we react to, form is what we want to do with it or make of it, at least for those in the visual arts. For some reason it is considered prudish, stand-offish, or whatever, to use the word form instead of body, as if we are somehow rejecting the human content. Not so.</p>

<p>The de-objectification of the body, male or female, takes place in the head of the owner of the body. Yes, I know you are looking at my body because it interests you, sexually, but you do not possess my thoughts and they are likely to be foreign to yours (In other words I don't give a...). Objectification takes two to play the game, not unlike sexual interaction.</p>

<p>"A part of what is art is uniqueness." That was my earlier point and I think there is no better way to make nude photography art than that, provided the unique approach, angle or interaction with the subject is not a trivial uniqueness but something that sugests to the viewer that he is engaging in a new experience, and contrary to what Lannie mentions I don't think technique is a major part of that uniqueness.</p>

<p> </p>

[zack_zoll]

<p>Hi all. I'm currently packing my bags and will leave for school in the morning. Classes run from 9-6 and then it's open darkroom until midnight, so I don't see myself logging on to chat much between now and the end of the session in two weeks. I just wanted to tell everyone that I enjoyed this thread, and thank you for the conversation.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Zack, enjoy your classes and especially the darkroom. I sometimes need to push myself into mine, when other things compete for attention, but once there, what great possibilities can arise, and we are alone with our thoughts and our creativity. </p>