'Adult' Enters the Mainstream -- The Porno Convention in Las Vegas

Total nonchalance greets a nearly nude woman writing on a table

topped with a plastic material -- epitomizing that pornography

is 'all business' -- at least in Las Vegas early this January. Your

ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. PLEASE RATE ON

THE MERITS OF THE PHOTOGRAPH ONLY, NOT ON YOUR PERSONAL FEELINGS

ABOUT THE SUBJECT, OR YOUR PERSONAL, IDEOLOGICAL, OR RELIGIOUS

FEELINGS ABOUT PORNOGRAPHY, as this is NOT an endorsement of that.

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 enlightened). John

The word is 'writhing' . . . not 'writing' . . . on the tabletop.

I apologize for the error.

John (Crosley)

Yep! For a moment I was stupefied... I couldn't imagine any writing materials to be anywhere close to this scene :-) and then I understood, and finally found your correction :-) I think you've captured a significant moment here, a study in contrasts.

Best regards.

Yes, no 'writing' materials, as I've corrected myself, but as you probably are aware by now, whenever I spot a visual contradiction or a contrast, I swiftly take out my camera and try to record it and do so artfully.

The result often is a 'statement' about what is being recorded, whether or not I agree with the resulting 'statement' or not.

Do I like and agree with 'porn' or 'not'?

That's not the subject of this photograph and entirely irrelevant.

The subject of this photograph is a nearly naked woman lying on a table, somewhat isolated, a guy with a black t-shirt on to her left, obviously security, looking away, and two guys in the background also looking leftward, and also felicitously spaced.

And of course, finding and capturing the moment that spacing was felicitous was and is 'my art' if I have any. This is not the finest rendering, but that is made up for in my mind by the strength of its statement.

There were far 'stronger' statements to be made, but I can't necessarily show them on Photo.net and may have to look for a gallery where a private showing can be made, as this was a 'porn' convention and the backgrounds or subjects which were being 'ignored' by people in the business often had obscene and pornographic content, which is not allowed subject matter here on Photo.net

I have one such in mind where a man is finished 'eating lunch' while the video in the background shows a young woman having her 'lunch eaten' . . . if you get my drift. . . .

It's my 'tour de force' -- my 'statement about the whole AVN (Adult Video News) convention, the official name for this convention, which ended in early January. It was pretty mind-boggling. I had hoped to go last year, and didn't plan ahead as one must do.

It's open to the public on four days out of five but I was credentialed and had access to the 'industry' day, but I could have been content with the public days only, and this 'scene' was open to the adult public, for a hefty fee, which is what everyone pays for the 'privilege' of viewing pornography.

Part of the statement is that 'porn is just business and day life goes on; porn is people and people go about their business in myriad ways, even if it is the world's largest -- I think -- sexual industry celebration.

And yes, I saw Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick, Ron Jeremy and others, including some guy in a kangaroo suit, who fancied himself a porn star and photographed them all, but with an editorial slant -- not to save photos of my favorite stars and starlets, but to 'make points' or make photographs from which others could make points -- hopefully, they are telling photographs -- in the absence of great aesthetics, that is what one best can hope for.

I often look forward to your comments Debasish, because they are themselves full of insight and never lame and never miss the point.

(That's a backhanded way of complimenting you for being attentive AND intelligent in your commentaries on my photographs)

Please keep it up.

Technically this is not the best photo, so you can imagine I posted it because of its strong story and message -- its strong 'contradictions' and juxtapositions, and you'd be dead right.

John (Crosley)

I'll keep visiting, as much as my tight schedule allows me. You're in my ``interesting persons'' list (but that doesn't say much), so whenever I log on, I visit your pictures. I'm fascinated by your pictures, for one, I find your views to be quite radical and raw-sans-the-`raw'-sense (if you get what I'm trying get to, without trying to find a better synonym), and for another, in my perception your works refrain from preaching while offering no less than the truth---not often is this the case with artists. (`But then what is art?')

Best regards.

As incomprehensible as the previous aspired to be, I completely understood it, and am in complete agreement and understanding; you understand me completely.

Thank you.

John (Crosley)

If one looks at the background, that is why the photo was posted and it was no accident.

Surely the individuals were involved in some sort of semi-random movement, but the moment of capture is something the photographer chooses. I chose this moment for the spacing and the separation of the background characters, from the guy in the white suit and hat, left, the big guy (with name on his right chest), foreground, to the crossed-arm guy background -- all of whom seem to show indifference to the woman displaying her 'sexuality' and mostly nakedness on the makeshift 'stage', foreground.

While imperfect and there were more technically 'perfect' photos -- better focus and steadiness -- this was chosen for its composition and for its ability to tell a story and express a meaning.

The absoluteness of that story or 'meaning' is for the viewer to decide -- some will like porn, some will hate it, others may have a love-hate relationship with it, but I hope that this photo will be somewhat emblematic of the place the porn industry has in society.

In a way, society turns its head away, while porn literally sticks its rear in our faces on our computers every day, and it wouldn't do that unless it were the $60 billion a year business that experts say it is and people were sending their credit cards in for that $29.95 a month download 'treat'.

Of course, everyone says 'not me', but for all the 'not me's' in this world there sure were a lot of people at the 'adult' convention, the 'adult' stars sure seemed pretty popular, and the amount of money just to put it on seemed astonishing -- even the daily admission price for regular guys was extraordinarily steep (I remember what I was told, but I didn't buy such a ticket, so I won't put it here, and there was no real sex on display - bare breasts (nipples) and genitalia were forbidden in person at least and it seems that the grosser/rawer video displays were not being shown for whatever reason, though some videos on display were quite explicit at least as far as women's depictions were shown.

(And now strangely I don't recall depictions of any erect male members -- kind of the same as Photo.net's formerly stated rule against same in photographs, but with a decided required smutty intent, quite absent from Photo.net)

This event was held coincident with COMDEX -- the country's huge electronics convention, which was held next door, and the visitors to Comdex are what fueled the majority of the visitors to the adult convention (seems like Nerds were looking for a little high life *low life?* with their bits and bytes.)

In fact, I understand that the AVN show started as a 'booth' at Comdex, some took offense at it's being there and complained, so it moved 'next door' where it 'grew like topsy' and the two now are almost strange 'Siamese twins'.

John (Crosley)