Nudity

Some interesting comments from three different friends over the weekend – quite independently, and all women, – about nudity on my blog, after they had visited it. One seemed to feel “uncomfortable” about it. She is not a prude, but because it was me including nudity on the blog this did not seem right to her. I have been a keen photographer since I was 14 years old – I’m way beyond that now. I nervously photographed my first nude at 20, in a world that still was hypochritical about the naked image. Even with the so called sexual revolution of the sixties, in reality British attitudes were still incredibly prudish. I have never understood why the painted image is supposed to be more legitimised than the photo image? Remnants of that attitude still remain – incomprehensibly in a world that is clearly more libertine. I have not stepped over the boundary into the world of pornography, and never will do. I recognise that erotic images are increasing blurring this perceived watershed. To me, the photographic image should have something beautiful – or erotic -but with a sensitivity for the model. The very explicitness of pornography is devoid of beauty, and demeans the subject.

I hope to emulate some of the starker images of photographers like Bill Brandt, using only black & white and minimal lighting, which produces an anonymous image, but retains the real beauty of the human body. Watch this space.

By the way, the other two women were really cool about the images, which was not the reaction I expected from them.

~ by johnkavanagh on November 20, 2006.