Attitudes to nudity and photography as well as other art forms

[Gerald C Koch]

I don't see that nudes are necessary in photography.

If you are a painter or a sculpter then you have to do nude studies to learn the human form. But it's not necessary for photographers.

Why must nudes be deemed to be necessary. Why do they need to be to be seen as "studies" to be valid. It's still important to understand the human body no matter what the medium, be it paint, stone or film.

 

[Ian Grant]

I suppose it is up to individual perception, but when does artistic nude photography move into pornography, soft porn, hard porn, paedophilia, etc?

Paedophilia is a quite different issue and should be kept out of this particular discussion please, no-one here condones it and it needs to be rooted out like a cancer.

We all have our own percepttions of what's artistic nude, or erotic nudes, and then soft & hard porn, As we don't allow porn here it's rather academic, hard porn is normally actual sex acts, soft porn explicitly sexual imagery but it's borderline BAiley and Newton shoot superb nudes erotic, slightly explicit but not pornographic.

Ian

 

[cliveh]

Paedophilia is a quite different issue and should be kept out of this particular discussion please, no-one here condones it and it needs to be rooted out like a cancer.

We all have our own percepttions of what's artistic nude, or erotic nudes, and then soft & hard porn, As we don't allow porn here it's rather academic, hard porn is normally actual sex acts, soft porn explicitly sexual imagery but it's borderline BAiley and Newton shoot superb nudes erotic, slightly explicit but not pornographic.

Ian

I can think of one quite famous photographer, sometimes mentioned on this site as a great photographer, who I would suggest is in the area of paedophilia and as to the others you mention, where is line drawn?

 

[Wayne]

What bothers me about nudes is that they so often deny sexuality. In our culture, open nudity IS about sex unless one is taking a bath or a shower. So, what is there to be offended by? Seeing a (typically) young naked man or woman draped over a rock, or leaning against a tree is so patently false it's almost laughable. SHOW the arousal...give a REAL reason for posing without clothes instead of the uptight attitude that manufactures a silly excuse to bare it all. Or, just don't bother.

I'm not sure what your point is. Are you having a hard time finding images of people who are sexually aroused, or nude images that are intended to be sexually arousing? Or you just want more of them on APUG?

 

[Ian Grant]

I can think of one quite famous photographer, sometimes mentioned on this site as a great photographer, who I would suggest is in the area of paedophilia and as to the others you mention, where is line drawn?

You should start a new thread about that.

I have quite strong personal views about how Paedophiles have taken the innocence of happy family images of nude children to use for their own gratification, unfortunately the Internet disseminates it.

We live in a sick world fueled mainly from a non European new world culture which is riddled with gun crime, drugs, paedophiles etc.

It's a sad world where the images of my generation taken by our parents of us kids naked are deemed to be unacceptable, my sister and her now adult children think the same.

The controversial cases in recent years have mostly been female photographers shooting naked young children who happen to feature in their documentary work, Sally Mann for instance.

There's not a lot of common sense in this area.

Ian

 

[giannisg2004]

Why are you offended when a privately created web site has its own editorial requirements for posting? Don't the owners of this site have the freedom to decide what they want to do with their site? Or do you want them to give up their rights and freedom and to comply with your viewpoints? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If you’re offended by their rights, then you don’t have to be here and can start your own site.

You misunderstood me.
I'm not "offended", I just disagree. And I deal with, on my own.
I would never demand, or force the owners to make any change to my liking. That's absurd.
I could say my opinion, but never impose it on someone else.

 

[cliveh]

Photographing naked children is one thing and maybe construed as innocent, but when you also make them where lipstick and jewellery I can’t see this as artistic photography. Perhaps others can enlighten me?

 

[Gerald C Koch]

I suppose it is up to individual perception, but when does artistic nude photography move into pornography, soft porn, hard porn, paedophilia, etc?

Even the US Supreme Court has been unable to come up with a definitive concept. There appears to be a not too subtle shift in perception of pornography during the last decade or so. What one hears now is the exploitation of women and children. If the idea of pornography wasn't vague enough then the idea of exploitation is even more so. Truly dangerous ground.

 

[cowanw]

Ian has asked you all to not talk about this in this thread.
Please, consider starting your own thread about children.

 

[ambaker]

You should start a new thread about that.

I have quite strong personal views about how Paedophiles have taken the innocence of happy family images of nude children to use for their own gratification, unfortunately the Internet disseminates it.

We live in a sick world fueled mainly from a non European new world culture which is riddled with gun crime, drugs, paedophiles etc.

It's a sad world where the images of my generation taken by our parents of us kids naked are deemed to be unacceptable, my sister and her now adult children think the same.

The controversial cases in recent years have mostly been female photographers shooting naked young children who happen to feature in their documentary work, Sally Mann for instance.

There's not a lot of common sense in this area.

Ian

I find it interesting as to how it always seems to be the other person's culture that is at the root of the problem.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Well, you all know my attitude to it by now. I have no problem with it in just about any form (pedophilic porn being the obvious exception). But getting back to the original subject, I think there is something essential about the nude in art: we NEED to have it because it serves to expose raw truths about us as humans - there's no hiding behind clothes or costumes. Literally stripped down to the absolute minimum, anything included in a nude must be there for a reason, either as a signifier or a distraction.

 

[Dinesh]

..
We live in a sick world fueled mainly from a non European new world culture which is riddled with gun crime, drugs, paedophiles etc..

Wow!

 

[dorff]

I find it interesting as to how it always seems to be the other person's culture that is at the root of the problem.

Political correctness is the enemy of art, expression and creativity. It is usually also the enemy of thought and common sense. It has always been, and will always be that way. It relates to racial issues, class issues, gender and sexual issues etc., and in all cases leads to a substantial drop in quality of the discourse and obstruction of really useful or meaningful expression of experience, solutions etc. No sane artist, including photographers, should ever welcome or even just tolerate it. Respect is a totally different thing, and something well worth striving for, but not for those who have dis-earned it.

It irks me when some people entitle themselves to the right to be offended on behalf of everyone else. They are welcome to be individually offended, and to exercise their individual choices, such as not clicking through on a link. In the case of children, it is a different topic, and not well suited to this discussion. Suffice it to say that as adults we have obligations to protect the weak and the young, against even unintended consequences. But we have to do so not sacrificing too much freedom of expression for too little protection, which is sadly what happened in the case of Ms Mann and others.

 

[AgX]

What bothers me about nudes is that they so often deny sexuality. In our culture, open nudity IS about sex unless one is taking a bath or a shower.

Is that so?

Ever been to a nudist beach? Boring.

 

[darkosaric]

A while ago I saw a comment on a photograph showing a pair of bare breasts - "not suitable for children". What are they for then?!!


Steve.

Good one ! I think Hollywood has a lot influence on this. In every blockbuster from Hollywood you can see blood, killing, violence - but breasts are totally out of question. In European movies you have totally different approach - more natural

 

[Rick A]

I was away all weekend, and missed what all the hoopla is about. I feel the need to toss my two pennies at this thread though, so here goes. If you do not like something, stop looking at it and do something else. If you feel the need to chime in, make it constructive and never denigrate or disparage another persons work, it is theirs, NOT YOURS. Personally, I stopped shooting nudes when I stopped shooting portraits, I do not like photographing people (I shot portraits for a living so leave me alone), I usually don't see where it serves any purpose, but occasionally someone here pops one in that is incredibly stunning (so very rare). I see the genre as tired and over done, most poses so awkward and just plain stale, that it's sad. However, the photographer shot what he saw, shared it with the community, and as such deserves to keep it displayed just like anyone else does. We do live in a warped society, where violence is embraced, and natural sexuality is frowned upon. Women cannot even feed their own babies discretely in public without being scorned and ridiculed for such a beautiful natural act.

 

[AgX]

I rather got the impression that this breast feeding in public is more easy today. The same for public nudity. So far for being natural. What drastically changed is the bodies themselves being made unnatural.

 

[darkosaric]

If you do not like something, stop looking at it and do something else.

+1 for all you wrote.

This sentence that I quote reminds me at one crazy and funny TV show that I watched when I was living in Croatia. It was called "Nightmare TV show": Saturday from 11pm till 4am. Everybody could call and speak with guests (bunch of very unusual extravagant guests). Many calls were from people who were angry and upset with the show - calling them to say that they should stop, that they are crazy, should be put to jail ... it made show even more fun and grotesque!

 

[darkosaric]

I rather got the impression that this breast feeding in public is more easy today. The same for public nudity. So far for being natural. What drastically changed is the bodies themselves being made unnatural.

Here in Europe yes, but in USA I don't think so.

 

[Xmas]

We live in a sick world fueled mainly from a non European new world culture which is riddled with gun crime, drugs, paedophiles etc.

...

There's not a lot of common sense in this area.

Ian

Please try googling

Christinia Copenhagen

or

BBC Eric Gill

or

BBC Jim will fix it

note that Wikipedia is silent on some of Eric's 'activities'

I've seen things in the Photographers Gallery that I thought were illegal for public display.

I'd not attribute the new world as totally responsible.

 

[tkamiya]

What bothers me with all this is that I don't think people who say they are offended with something are truly offended. If someone is truly offended, they should voice their opinion just as someone else who isn't offended should.

I feel/think/believe many who do complain do so because they think they should be offended or that complaining somehow elevate their status as a model citizen. Either that or people drum up some victims that may not even exist. "What about children?" Well, what children today have never seen naked or almost naked bodies?? Children in most impressionable ages have just seen teen idle swing across a stage totally naked in a wrecking ball right on TV. Songs today are filled with lyrics I will not repeat on APUG. Children today are bombarded with these "stuff" on daily basis.

As to if you don't like it, look elsewhere, I partially agree. If someone is posting/doing something in order to offend someone, not artistically so but just for sake of offending, I wish those people stop, or APUG moderators take action. I think there are few here who do this on purpose. If something is not to your taste, then yes, if someone finds someone's work not to their liking, look at something else that do pleases them in one way or another.

Breast feeding thing is just nuts in my opinion. It's a natural act, but some folks are doing it just to show that they can. I think that makes it unnatural. I think it stopped being a natural act but became a statement at that point. There's such thing as something that is legal but not appropriate for the place or the situation. We tend to go to extreme and complain that people complain.

OK, I'm done.

 

[Dinesh]

.... I can't really separate the nude female human form from sex or eroticism. You can drape her over rocks, sand, tree branches or the hood of a car.

Depending on the nude female human form, I have the same dilemma.

Let the flaying begin!

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I don't get it. What raw truths are revealed? Note this is an actual question, not any kind of moral hangup crap. Nudity doesn't offend me, nor do I understand why anyone would bother getting so upset about seeing a picture of a naked woman or something. Just don't look at it if you don't like it, or don't approve etc.

Call me immature if anyone wants to, but I guess the problem for me is I can't really separate the nude female human form from sex or eroticism. You can drape her over rocks, sand, tree branches or the hood of a car.

I'd also note I can't be the only one like this. Witness the number of views most nudes posted to the gallery get, in comparison to other pictures, and in relation to the number comments (usually very few). There's no way in every case the >100 people who viewed the photo initially looked at the thumbnail and then clicked on it because they were fascinated by the lighting, or how the shapes of the T&A parts echoed the shapes of the rocks.

ONE of those truths is exactly the phenomenon you observe - we are in fact sexual beings, and we respond sexually to things that are stimulating. And there should be no shame in that.

People hide inside clothes, as well as expressing themselves through them. Clothing is a form of armor inside which we can pretend to be something we are not. Put on a doublet and tights, and you're Henry VIII. A leather jacket, white t-shirt and jeans, and you're Brando (or James Dean). You may in fact BE the person you appear to be in clothing, but the viewer cannot know that. Is that confidence on your face in the photo real, or is it because you're wearing that bad-ass biker outfit? Of course, that confident look could be pure and simple acting by a talented actor, but when the subject is nude, you know it isn't coming from their outfit imposing a persona upon them. Any persona they exhibit is entirely of their own invention and communication, not something the viewer imputes.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Call me immature if anyone wants to, but I guess the problem for me is I can't really separate the nude female human form from sex or eroticism. You can drape her over rocks, sand, tree branches or the hood of a car.

Another question I'd like to poke at separately - I realize that, given most of the forum members here are heterosexual males, when they hear the word 'nude' their first thought leaps to female nudes. I personally find it frustrating that this is the situation. There is equal measure of art (and non-art) in the male nude form. It might in fact help you to understand the point I was making in my original comment if you viewed nudes that did not immediately strike your sexual sensibilities to see them as something other than pseudo-porn. I'm actually offering a class this fall on Narrative Using the Male Figure - the idea is to look at how you can tell stories through the use of the human form, in series as well as in single images. The use of the nude figure is to force students to think about how to communicate ideas through gesture and expression, posing and lighting.

You can ask any serious nude figure photographer about their experience working with nude models and they'll tell you, if they're being honest, that they do have some moment of sexual stimulation at the beginning of the shoot, but after about 5 minutes of working, that's entirely gone and the last thing on their mind is sex. They really are thinking about lighting, posing, is that leaf getting in the way in a good or bad way, etc.

 

[removed account4]

some people see porn in fruits and vegetables, others in trees
( someone told me once " that tree print of yours looks like a giant ass " )
others in the human form ( male or female ) draped and on the hood of a car or selling snap on tools.

we are all entitled to our opinions about what we thing it is and isn't
the line between art+porn is vague / blurry ... vague enough that a us supreme court justice
said he couldn't say what it was, but he knew it when he saw it ...

maybe to some people it strips away everything but truth and vulnerability
but to others, no doubt it is just "big 20¢ college words for an art school thesis and personal reasons taking pictures of naked people"
( not that that is a bad, cause it sounds like a good thesis and great reasons for photographing nudes )