zoewiseman

<p>There's a photographer who's made quite a profit by going to famine and war torn regions and photographing children dying, not for news services, not to raise awareness, but to further his career. Ethically, to me, it's a tad bit deplorable. It isn't illegal, usually it's children starving in far off lands who never know their likeness is being used to further the career of a photographer. <br>

Now the majority of these images are being used to bring awareness to a situation so that help finds a way to their cause. Or so that the Paris Hilton's of the world understand what war is. The reality of war and the reality of famine or suffering is something that the world needs to see. Apathy is something to be fought for most of the journalists that venture to suffering. Yet, there are still those who go to use it for their own profit. And those people should be shunned, in my eyes. <br>

There are even "workshops" set up in places like India to make money to teach photographers how to "ethically" photograph suffering. I get a bad taste in my mouth when I think of that. </p>

<p>I'm going through the same with Flickr! Someone stole my work and posted it to his account. I've been back and forth between Yahoo! (who now owns Flickr) and Flickr for over a week now just to get my work deleted. It's still not deleted as of tonight, but hopefully it will be soon. <br>

Luckily all my images are low res so printing them or selling them would be rather silly, but it's still really frustrating how disrespectful some people have become when it comes to copyright. But, they're now all over Russian blogs. GREAT! <br>

If you have a wordpress site, there's a plug-in called DM-Albums that I've just started using and you can prevent right clicking and saving your images. They still get saved to the cache, so if someone is clever enough about their computer they can still retrieve them, but most people aren't. And they can screen shot them, but this is a little tiny preventive measure that I'm starting to implement on my site in the next week. I'm getting rid of all the other stuff I was using to display my work as it is too easy to steal my images. <br>

Also, put an attorney on retainer. Cease and desist letters work wonders sometimes. </p>

<p>As I've already apologized, for confusing the writer with the model, and confusing giving the photograph a title, instead of talking about what someone said about the genre in general, I don't feel yet another apology is necessary. It's just you wanting to come down on me because I left myself open and wasn't watching my back sufficiently. Are you a wolverine waiting for the kill? Jesus! <br>

I don't dislike anyone. <br>

I have been heavily involved in the fine art nude genre for over 20 years, I've put a book out, my work is regularly in gallery exhibitions, I've worked with hundreds of photographers and almost the same number of models, I teach, I do speaking engagements all about nude photography. I thought I'd be able to contribute something without being picked apart for expressing my feelings about this genre of photography, because it's extremely close to home. And since the model in question happened to be a friend, and people were speaking about how she shouldn't have been looking at the camera and instead resort to being submissive so as not to seem antagonizing to the viewer, I thought I'd step in and say something to retort that because I'm tired of seeing submissive nudes. Yet these are the responses I received while trying to provoke thought:<br>

"Iwill ignore the condescending tone of your post" (I'm a bitch)<br>

"By the way, Zoe, leaving sex out of it is pure silliness" (I'm a silly little girl!)<br>

"If one denies that, they simply have no understanding of nature or the human male." (I'm dumb)<br>

"I don't take your not sexualizing images as "a woman's perspective". I see it as <em >your</em> perspective. " (lots of women desexualize nudes, it's not only my perspective.)<br>

"I find this distinction a bit silly, "male/man photographs" vs "female/woman photographs"" (I'm silly again)<br>

" You're constantly pushing the differences between male and female, but yet want to be treated the same?" (I'm a hypocrite)<br>

"I get the more than faint idea you find nudes to be degrading." (huh? have you seen my websites??? it's all nudes.)<br>

"Yes, it's good for us males to consider female opinions on this" (so, uh, we have to be considered?)<br>

"Referring to a feminist website to support a view of the reaction 'women' have to nudity/nakedness is a strange one." (I'm strange)<br>

"If I may be so bold, you come onto a (male comindated, as you see it) forum and try to tell experienced photographers that their conceptions of how women (and men!) view nudes." (I'm not an experienced model or photographer, so therefore I should pipe down - even though I've probably been at it longer than whoever said this)<br>

"Oh c'mon, man-up a little !" (I'm acting too much like a woman in the men's room)<br>

"You cannot be Brigman or Man Ray, no matter how hard you try to imitate them." (I'm an imitator)<br>

"Like always, we called someone on assumptions, attitude, and false generalizations.<br>

 

 

 

<p >Zoe, you prejudged the outcome before you entered.</p>

<p >Nothing enlightening here." (I needed to be called out about my feelings about fine art nude photography, I'm not enlightened, I prejudge, I spoke falsely.)</p>

<p > </p>

<p >"Maybe I give people in this forum more credit than you and Zoe in being able to be genuine and in approaching the subject knowing the limitations of their own inherited biases and the biases of the world and able to carry on a philosophical discussion nevertheless. Have you never felt pounced on in this forum? Did you blame it on some generic fact about what group of people you fit into or did you see it in another light?" (I'm unable to give anyone credit in being genuine, I'm biased)</p>

<p > </p>

<p >"<strong >Arthur</strong>, if Zoe was being pounced upon, it was for the ideas she expressed and her manner of expressing them." (I didn't express myself up to standards)</p>

<p >"Zoe melted down and left" (no, I had to prepare for a discussion about self-publishing to an audience and decided I didn't have time for this, and well, was considerably tired of being put down for my thoughts.)</p>

<p >"Zoe can roll and laugh her way to self-righteous oblivion, but she missed the point. I never suggested, let alone accused, she was trying to copy anyone. I've never even looked at her pictures." (I'm self-righteous even though I was told I was trying to imitate dead photographers)</p>

<p >" A specific accusation deserves a specific, not generic, apology." (chastising and antagonistic and demanding)</p>

<p >"inability to comprehend this thread" (my brain obviously doesn't work the way it should)</p>

<p >"You're also wrong and gratuitously derogatory about dissing all of this as <strong ><em >lunacy</em></strong>." (I'm wrong again, even though all these stabs at me are complete and utter lunacy)</p>

<p > </p>

<p >So - no apology. How unfortunate for the other people genuinely interested in what I might have to say when I have to constantly brush off these accusations. </p>

<p >Excuse me... but I think I'm the one who deserves an apology. Not asking though, as I know it won't be forthcoming and I'll look like I'm not "manning up."</p>

 

 

 

</p>

<p>I guess I'll change my mind too. Definitely no point.</p>

 

<p>fred... you're kidding, right? give me a break. you've criticized everything that i've spoken about here, taken me out of context, spoken negatively of me from the get go, and YOU want an apology. Are you doing stand up comedy? </p>

<p>Luis - no. the phrase "girl without a brain" still is quite pathetic no matter who it's directed to or who is doing the directing, whether it came from Fred or the poster (not the model) Rebecca, and I don't have the time to re-read all this lunacy (and it is lunacy) to figure out where it stemmed from. i don't apologize for being irritated seeing those words. i apologize for confusing the Rebecca's. just because women pose nude doesn't mean they don't have brains. just because photographers choose to photograph them a certain way to their own way of seeing shouldn't be cause to negate anyone's intelligence. the one's who do that show their own lack of intelligence by doing so. period. end of story. and i don't recall anyone apologizing to me for taking things I said out of context. why isn't there an ignore button on this site? i said I was sorry for the confusion (ONLY), my feelings about the words stand the same. i don't apologize for those feelings nor voicing those feelings one bit. your authoritative commentary should be apologized for, yet you still have to correct the woman each time she has something to say. I don't see you correcting any of the men here. and lord knows there's a lot that could be corrected. </p>

 

<p>Ok Josh - so Fred wasn't speaking about the photograph of Rebecca which started this thread? He was speaking about the Rebecca who is commenting here? Sorry folks! Confusion... </p>

<p>back to my fish...</p>

<p>"and more to Rebecca's "girl without a brain"" (Fred)</p>

<p>This is so utterly rude and disrespectful that I had to come back and say so. I know Rebecca, I've photographed Rebecca. She speaks German, Russian, French and English... and quite a bit of Spanish. She is one of the smartest girls I know. To talk about her this way is disgusting. I wish the Mod's would delete this. She does not deserve to be spoken about like this.</p>

<p>@Rebecca - I don't have time to waste in restating what I've already said in threads when people restate my words and say I mean something totally different than what I stated. Instead of dealing with that I chose to bow out. I was actually laughing at the entire escapade, not having a melt down or upset, it's par for the course. I think the most humorous posting was the accusation I was trying to copy two of the photographers I mentioned as examples of timelessness. That had me rolling. As for porn, to each their own. I've never seen a porno and don't intend to so I can't comment on it's perceived beauty. I didn't think we were talking about pornography in this thread, I came from the notion we were talking about art nudes, so that's the only genre I've been speaking about. ;) Meow. Z</p>

<p>"Why do women photograph more women nude than guys nude? Because we can't be sure that a nude male model wouldn't use that as an excuse to rape us." ... and ... "I'd have to know a guy very very well before I'd photograph him nude, and more likely than not, I'd prefer to photograph a gay guy, not that I haven't had a pass from a gay friend that utterly confounded me. I know that a straight guy who raped me in that setting would get off in a lot of places in this country. Whole thing is very problematic since the guys who would pose nude for women are likely to be people who see nakedness, even their own, as erotic and asking them to pose nude as a sexual invitation. Easier to photograph orchids. They do their thing and I do mine." (Rebecca)<br /> Bravo for the bravery of putting that one out there.<br /> Thanks again for the fish... I've forgotten my towel... </p>

<p>And the answer to this entire thread is 42.</p>

<p>@Mike - I'm quite over this conversation. truly. So, all of you boys can go focus on other things now. I tried to contribute an honest feeling about the genre and all you've managed to do is talk down at me for it.<br>

have a beautiful day everyone!<br>

so long and thanks for all the fish!</p>

<p>@wouter - what i described is a generic woman's perspective. ask around to women who are not photographers. have a gander at a feminist website. this is a good one: http://www.jezebel.com It's witty and humorous without being unsexy. You might start to understand women, maybe. But, like you've misinterpreted my explanation, I would assume you'd misinterpret everything on that website also. but it's how most women feel, whether or not we vocalize those feelings is another matter. especially inside this semi-masoginistic realm of male dominated photography. i don't enjoy someone dissecting something i spent some time on to try and clearly come across to people only to have it misconstrued and restructured in order to mean something totally different than what I meant. I don't enjoy having someone tell me that what I said wasn't what I meant. I didn't ask anyone to look at anything from MY OWN perspective. if you thought it was hostile, then why did you bother typing all that out to begin with?<br>

being a model for over 30 years then taking up photography, i think i understand a thing or two about different perspectives and photography, modeling, and everything that goes along with it. it's been my entire life. and since i don't see any photographs of models in your portfolio, how the hell could you possibly tell me how it is? that's completely illogical.<br>

And your apology might sound honest and sincere if it wasn't so backhanded in it's delivery. </p>

<p>yes... tell the woman about women... sure. @wouter really? <br>

women are more emotional than men. that's not to say that men are more rational because you've demonstrated that is a false statement by trying to explain women to a woman. </p>

<p>"You're constantly pushing the differences between male and female, but yet want to be treated the same?" (wouter) <br>

there's no way in hell a man would ever treat me the same way he would treat another man, clearly or you wouldn't be speaking this way towards me in a condescending tone. <br>

one man here agreed with my point of view out of how many men commenting here? @Arthur was the only one. that ought to tell you something. all the rest of you are telling me i'm wrong. i'm not. i'm explaining how some women photograph and how some women react to nude photography. and they all do so differently than most men do. <br>

should we go further down the psychological path towards why women get severely irritated by irrational responses men give them or the irrational photographs men take of women? (i'm being an asshole now, clearly)</p>

<p>I knew the venture into the boys club here would end in stupidity. Have fun boys... it's your genre and only your genre after all.<br>

*eyeroll*</p>

<p>@Luis - that's if you think that all photographs are made digitally in our times, which a lot are not. there are many photographers still using the same techniques today that anne brigman and man ray used. while not as popular it doesn't mean it's a dead medium. i still do platinum printing and quite a few of my friends still do wet plates. the date stamp is the emergence of digital photography and 35mm photography. i suppose every technique can have a date stamp, but only if you know absolutely the timeline of the images. i could make a 4x5 film image and print it in platinum and the only way you'd know if it was made in 2010 and not 1880 would be if you took it to a lab and studied the chemicals and paper stock.</p>

<p>@Fred - of course a genre isn't the sole cause of objectification. that's not what i was saying at all. only a person can objectify another person. and i said SOME women when speaking about sexualizing nudes. the majority of women who view nude photography don't like it because it IS objectifying. like the wife finding the playboy hidden in your secret spot and giving you the look. that happens all the time because the magazine is based on sex and the wife probably wants to be seen as something more than that. when the wife sees the magazine she feels that's what her husband thinks a woman should be, so she's offended. (OMG Venus & Mars) So, it definitely is the perspective of the majority of women, photographers or not. while some women photograph to please a man's eye, and there are many, there are also women who ignore it.</p>

<p>@phylo - women and men do photograph differently. just like they dress differently and think differently. so to think that a woman's response to nude photography would be the same as a man's response is naive. some women find it liberating, some women find it degrading, some women are embarrassed that they don't look as good as the models in the images so they find distaste in the pictures. there are many emotions women go through when they see nudes. most emotions are not sexual. and i've only touched a couple of emotions ... women are capable of millions of emotions in a millisecond. that's why we cry more than men do, if you've failed to notice.</p>

<p> </p>

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

<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>

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

<p>@Lannie What market? There's no market for figure photography in the United States at least. So, that's not a good analogy either.<br>

Why do you think women would be photographing other women? Think. </p>

 

<p>@Fred ~ 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>

<p>Rebecca (the model) is not a submissive being, and I would be shocked if she would adapt to submissive standards and not be seen by looking away. I think those who have issues with women looking at the lens when they are nude quite possibly don't want the models eyes upon them while they see them in a state of undress. Why would it be more acceptable for her to look away? I find no sense in this theory.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>hmm. OK. sorry about that, thought "news, shows and exhibitions" would be the right spot. i'll correct it.</p>

<p>I'm having a large exhibition of my work and wanted to invite everyone in the Los Angeles area! <br>

A&I Gallery<br>

933 N. Highland AVE<br>

Hollywood, CA 90038<br>

7PM - 10PM February 18, 2010<br>

Free food - cash bar - 50% of proceeds from book sales and print sales will benefit the <a href="http://www.weingart.org">Weingart Center</a>. Hope to see some of you there. :)</p>

<p><img src="http://figuremodels.org/files/2010/01/fiatlux.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="568" /></p>

<p>I understand you Jean. <br>

Vampires... yep!</p>

<p>Let me know when you post the video... I'll publish it everywhere.</p>

<p>The question before a journey is not whether or not anyone else will care - the question is what joy will it bring to you. A compilation of someone's life's work is not only a worthwhile journey to embark on, it is a critical journey to enlighten and to teach others how to build their own life's work. <br>

I encourage you to go for it. Please let us all know when it is finished. I would certainly love to see it.<br>

Zoe Wiseman</p>

www.katlove.com - my muse and artist and model and "little sis" and all around beautiful soul.