The Sex Shop: No Actual Persons Depicted Herein (Advice: Contains Depiction of Partial Nudity)**+ *

This is actually a documentary photograph, although for comfort of

others it is submitted under the category of 'nudes'. It is NOT

a 'nude' photograph, nor are the figures depicted actually 'nude'

and, being 'for sale' in a sex shop, they are not actually 'real

people' either -- they're fantasies. Photo taken with permission,

Hustler Enterprises. Please rate based on the documentary nature of

the photograph and its fulfillment of its roll as a document and

whether it is artfully composed rather than whether its subject

pleases you or whether or not you like or dislike sex shops (I am

neither endorsing them nor excoriating them by posting this - it is

posted for consideration of the photograph only in its role as a

docu-art photograph.) Your ratings are invited and most welcome.

If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment; Please share your superior photographic

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! Or at

least be edified or enlightened ;<\ John

The highlight -- reflection was deliberately placed over the poster model's face for artistic reasons, not because of photographic sloppiness.

 

John (Crosley)

This photograph is intended to end up as a selection in my folder of photographs in which the number of subjects totalling 'three' plays a prominent part -- the Presentation 'Threes' long overdue for updating.

 

John (Crosley)

Here is the same photo, desaturated through Photoshop CS2 'desaturation' command, posted in-line as a Black and White (blanc et noir; schwarz - weiz, chernoye - biele, and so forth) photo.

 

Which suits it better, color or black and white?

 

John (Crosley)

I like it better in color. Nice as a documentary piece. Not sure how I feel about the bit of red on the right. Might look better with it cropped out?

Thanks for the comment; I can't crop out the red, though I could desaturate it after selecting it, just taking the color out of it, as it is a structural element of the building and there is no way to have taken this particular photo without having used a fisheye without also including that element.

 

I took a another photo involving cutting off the straps on the androgynous (unisex?) mannequin's torso, foreground more, and it was very successful, but I chose this one for posting and it does show the red.

 

Your comment is astute and points to a genuine defect, however fairly easily remedied, if one uses Photoshop -- which I seldom use for such trickery. I'm more a purist -- though why I should be, I am far from clear.

 

I'm glad your comment was thoughtful and went to the photo's merits as a photograph; not on whether you like or hate sex shops. ;~))

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

John, although I appreciate your disclaimer that no people were hurt in the making of this photograph, the absence of these very people makes it a curiously sterile shot. People who work in these shops and allied places are generally very characterful (for good or bad) and the light airy decor and absence of character means it doesn't really work for me. What did you intend?

Kelley, the structural alement, though it might be selected and desaturated could not be cropped without cropping other portions of the photographidc, leaving a need to crop large parts of the other sides to keep it a rectangular I would have been excoriated for eviscerating the meaning of this photo by so doing/ as such cropping would have guytted this photo's message.

 

John (Crosley)

 

(Let me know if anyone else publishes anything like this.)

 

I was born in the wrong day and age for my photographic instincts: Elliott Erwitt would have taken somnething better and more humourous, I think, but I think I belonged in his golden era.

 

John

I was told I could photograph, so long as I did not include employes, but the employes were far from colorful.

 

One confided to me she worked in a shoe store part time, and she did that in a mall.

 

Others were equally uncolorful.

 

Photographing the employes would hardly have aided this photograph; there were no cigar chewing old men staring out at the browsers saying 'buy the magazines or get out' because there scarcely (or actually) were no magazines or they were in plastic if they were there.

 

And I kept within the strictures/it's rare not to be chased with cameras out of a 'sex shop' so I hewed the line and was thankful I got something I consider good.

 

Yes, it's sterile, but it's also meant to be sterile; that's part of the comment; such places are far from W A R M.

 

In fact, they're cold as ice, as is all commercial sex.

 

Nothing beats having a loved one hug you around the shoulders (or wherever) and the idea of a masked creature (mannequin, with a studded collar, restrained by a chain is meant to be sterile, and a blow-up doll, furthers the comment and that doll is bound behind its back, suspended from the air in front of a giant mural of an unnaturally beautiful, partially naked women.

 

It may not 'work' for you and YOU GOT THE PHOTO. IT WAS THE POINT OF THE PHOTO THAT however bold that this does not work for me either, but the display is simply posed for the few who enjoy the .alt lifestyle and to titillate the rest of us who do not.

 

If you find this abhorrent, so I do, and also repulsed, as blow-up dolls are not in my world view -- never have been, never will be, let alone suspended and bound.

 

Yes, it's sterile and by commenting on that, you have completely understood the photo; You get a prize. Would you like an inflatable doll?

 

With artificial parts?

 

It wasn't supposed to work for you (or me either). I just post 'em, not endorse 'em.

 

John (Crosley)

John, nice documentary shot: clean, compositionally nothing to add...

 

But the meanings impregnating this documentary image are crawling outside of it's canvas. Especially liking (by thought) the overabundance/saturation of more than questionable objects ordinarily found in sex shops in general: the chaotic (?!) scattering of things (thematization and parallelisms excluded - but sure on everyone's mind)- damn, you've captured that so well. And still managed to include "your" photographic "triumvirate". Congrats!

Thanks John for your explanation. I suppose sex is like any other commodity these days, available shrink wrapped and 24/7. Not offended by it at all. Just didn't get your artistic vision (although perhaps I did).

 

Here in the UK the more interesting places seem to be the tattoo and S&M clothing shops that locally are quite entertaining. I've never had the balls to suggest photographing in them though. So top marks for Chutzpah.

I take my camera(s) wherever, and in this case, offered to either remove the media or check them at the counter, so I could have a looksee at the famous Hustler store (a disappointment), but they said 'ok to take photos so long as no staff is depicted.' I was doubtful and kept asking each new employe I encountered as I didn't want police involved, but they each said the same thing.

 

This is counter to a long-standing tradition in the sex trade, and my hat's off to Larry Flynt just for that, if not for his . . . ahem . . . taste.

 

If I went to a tattoo or s&m show or parlor, I'd have my cameras with me. See the Argentine guy, tattooed all over his body, down in my portfolio. He liked to be photographed, or the Thailand guy after being tattoed in my Black and White from Then to Now folder.

 

Chutzpah -- I just take cameras and if no one objects, I take the photo; It's better to ask foregiveness than to ask permission (which is so easily denied).

 

Old saying.

 

Mainly among Catholics, though I am not one.

 

John (Crosley)