Jock Sturges

Cheryl Jacobs said:

I realize, and that's why I'm holding my tongue. But I am one of those people with multiple pertinent perspectives, and I would love to share them, but I am going to have to hold back, and I regret that.

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I'd like to hear what you have to say and I suspect I'm not alone. Without some substantiation at least one post in this thread is going away and I think anyone who wishes to denigrate the man needs to have something other than suppressed prurient urges to back it up.

Its okay to not like the work its all together another thing to suggest that his motivations or that he is evil.

Jock Sturges’ images make me uncomfortable. So too did many of the images from New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. I want to look away; I can’t and I feel as if I’m intruding. It’s almost like walking into the shower when someone’s in there. Does that mean they are immoral or should be banned? my God, I sincerely hope not. If I find an image too uncomfortable I can, indeed look away – as should others.

Of course the viewer overlays his or her own “baggage” on a work of art, and in many respects that is precisely what an artist should be doing – communicating with the emotions of the viewer. The viewer, however, should not seek to ban that communication. (He/She clearly has the individual right to withdraw from the “conversation” (it’s called looking away); but not the right to withdraw others.)

Many of Sturges’ images show a beauty of short-lived innocence and, as such offer a glimpse of something few others have had the guts to even attempt. Many of them, for me at least, do not. Like it or not we can and should only be viewers – never arbiters. I am not compelled to view his images and nor should I be barred from doing so.

“No animals were harmed in the production of this movie” should, perhaps be the dividing line. If the models were harmed, then enforcement action is required, and we already have laws for that. If not, (and I have to assume that 20 years down the road, with all the publicity that went with it, that no harm WAS indeed done) then we are talking personal taste. We should remember that not so long ago, in the overall scheme of things, a woman was considered “on the shelf” at age 16 !!

Personally, there is little doubt in my mind that I am the norm from which other people differ – and that’s the one thing I have in common with everyone else. We all believe we’re “normal”. We just have to extend the same rights we expect for ourselves to others.

My apologies for my initial post. My approach was ham-handed and inelegant. My defense? I am always quick to respond to pretentious intellectual elitism. You’d think that after all this time I would have learned to react with more precision.

I now know more about Mr Sturges and Ms Montgomery then I ever wanted to know.

Montgomery’s statutory rape by Sturges is no secret.

JR Moehringer wrote about it in a March 1998 edition of the LA Times.

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/mar/08/news/mn-26778

But in one case, Sturges’ family relationship with his young models went a step further. When he was 28 he conducted a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old named Jennifer Montgomery.

At the time, she was a New England boarding school student; he was her dorm counselor. They became intimate when he began using her as a model and remained so for years.

Today, Montgomery is 36 years old, a filmmaker living in Brooklyn, N.Y

The film earned her some acclaim and a Guggenheim fellowship, but it also put her on the radar screen of law enforcement officers everywhere. A Pittsburgh grand jury investigating Sturges and his work recently subpoenaed her, probably not the last Sturges-connected subpoena she will receive, she says.

In some ways, Montgomery embodies the conflicted relationship many have with Sturges’ work, which is embraced by the cultural mainstream. (One Sturges photograph hangs in the Museum of Modern Art; another illustrates the cover of a new novel by National Book Award-winning Southern writer Ellen Gilchrist.) Montgomery acknowledges that what Sturges did to her was wrong and contends that his photographs of children are unequivocally sexual.


I found numerous other credible references to the relationship between Montgomery and Sturges. Sturges’ attitude about sex and young women in general is typical of a pedophile. It is not HE that is wrong, it is the repressed people that seek to prosecute him that are the real danger.

We are all entitled to our opinions. Having an informed opinion makes for a more complete discussion.

Now I am interested. Who is the pretentious intellectual elitist?
I am betting it is J Brunner.:rolleyes:

jd callow said:

I'd like to hear what you have to say and I suspect I'm not alone. Without some substantiation at least one post in this thread is going away and I think anyone who wishes to denigrate the man needs to have something other than suppressed prurient urges to back it up.

Its okay to not like the work its all together another thing to suggest that his motivations or that he is evil.

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I'm still debating how much to say here. If we were all discussing this in person, I would not hesitate, but I'm reluctant to put type it out on the Internet.

cowanw said:

Now I am interested. Who is the pretentious intellectual elitist?
I am betting it is J Brunner.:rolleyes:

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Yeah, that's me. LOL.

ChrisHensel said:

Montgomery’s statutory rape by Sturges is no secret.

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I can't find a charge, let alone a conviction. As you have written it, it stands as a clear example of libel that could be acted on, rather than an opinion.

That is aside from the discussion, merely an observation about how you are phrasing what you write.

Pardon my hyperbole, I meant, of course, alleged.

But you raise a good point. Mr Sturges no doubt is/was aware of how his relationship was being characterized by Ms Montgomery and yet took no legal action against her or the Times.

ChrisHensel said:

Pardon my hyperbole, I meant, of course, alleged.

But you raise a good point. Mr Sturges no doubt is/was aware of how his relationship was being characterized by Ms Montgomery and yet took no legal action against her or the Times.

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Yes, of course, very damning. Can't think of a single reason an artist would choose to ignore something like that except guilt. And of course we are certain that this woman had no other motive than getting the truth out, well, in the form of a theatrical movie.....and how boring would the movie be without that bit...we know it must be the gospel truth, as all things written or filmed are.... and of course its a drama, ... no wiggle room from reality or liability there at all...:rolleyes:

I don't know the truth, and neither do you, but OTO I'm not advancing allegations of rape and pedophilia based on seriously tenuous information. The point you raise is how easy it is to advance hearsay and innuendo couched as fact in a public way, judge, jury, and executioner.

Certainly there has been no vendetta against Mr. Sturges on the part of the fundies.

ChrisHensel said:

But you raise a good point. Mr Sturges no doubt is/was aware of how his relationship was being characterized by Ms Montgomery and yet took no legal action against her or the Times.

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Taking legal action would be a "damned if I do and damned if I don't" situation. He can't win even if he won. How would he prove he didn't? How would she prove he did? It would be a futile and expensive gesture accomplishing nothing.

jamusu said:

Cheryl.

No disrespect to you, but concerning the photographs of the children he takes, I would have to deem that particular portion of his body of work as nothing more than a legalized form of PEDOPHILIA. A method by which sick individuals are granted, be they female or male permission to prey upon the young and innocent in the name of "ART".

I am not saying that he is a PEDOPHILE because I have never met him, and it would be wrong for me to label him as such with out any solid proof, but in most cases a photographers work speaks for itself.

Does it not?

Jamusu.

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Jamusu, I completely respect your right to comment on this. But, I wanted to share some thoughts.

The whole thing about this area of art is context, context, context. Personally, and professionally, I don't see Jock Sturges work as anything close to pedophilic, illegal or morally inappropriate.

I am an attorney. In August 2007, I sued a pedophile with a restraining order here in California. There was a huge media thing over it. His name was Jack McClellan. He came to southern California and started surreptitiously photographing little girls and putting them on a blog to inform other pedophiles as to where such kids could be found.

For this, I caught a lot of flack from so-called First Amendment defenders. Their belief was that prohibiting this conduct was an infringement on expression rights. Professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA can personally be credited with causing my family some serious grief by raising the First Amendment argument.

This presents the other end of the spectrum - which is why I bring it up. Not to toot my own horn, but the Court of Appeal upheld the restraining order and agreed with me - harm is the threshold. The conduct is frightening to kids and ultimately harmful (to paraphrase the opinion).

There is a large, dark universe of pedophilia and pedophiles that is mind boggling in scope. It is all about having sex with little - and I mean little - kids. Further, there isn't much academic debate on "intergenerational" sexual contact or the extent of ramifications from it.

Jock Sturges is in no way this. I see his work as an expression of form and being; a beauty of being. From what I understand, his "models" - or subjects - ranged from, as mentioned, personal friendships to long term relationships with naturist communities. These people were photographed in their natural state and in their . . . indigenous . . . setting.

Was there harm to the subjects?

I don't see it.

It's one thing to disagree with Sturges or just not like the work. It's another to allude to it as being a branch of pedophilia - or related in any way. Being familiar with what pedophilia is, Sturges work is no part of it. It has nothing to do with it.

On the FBI radar? As a lawyer, I've known a lot of feds. It's easy to get on the radar. I was told by an FBI agent once that they investigate anyone who has, among other things, "a social agenda."

A social agenda? What ever happened to rights of association and expression? You will find that, at the law enforcement level, there are no rights to association and expression. If you're on the radar, you're on the radar.

I'm on the radar as I write this because I'm presently representing a member of the Hells Angels in an assault case. Just by doing my job as a lawyer, I am being surveilled. And the powers that be are fairly open about this.

Jock Sturges is not about pedophilia. And, don't be swayed by attention from law enforcement. (I've handled enough of their divorces to where, if I started talking about what I know, then I'd really be in trouble.)

Excellent post, Zin.

Cheryl, I want to thank you for sharing that interview.

/ Marcus

I have loved Jock's images for as long as I have seen them and I want you to give some of my background and thoughts about it:

Some years ago I started to get comments no my photos that they were simmiluar to Sally Mann. Since I didn't knew who she was I googled her and it didn't took long until I started to see links to this man - Jock Sturges.

When I first saw his images of these nude young children I was very chocked. Not of the images themselves, but where can he find the children and their parents to say this is ok. I mean how to you approach a family with these types of images?

These thoughts wouldn't leave my head and I ended up buying one of his books. And when I saw the images of these children totally nude and they seemed so self-confident and didn't show any shame of there bodies nor how they posed I become more interes on how can he do this.

When browsing through the book I noticed quite fast that he photographed the same subject year after year and this made me feel that I "knew" the person. Naturally this isn't true, but still I loved to see her age and become more of a female, not just the body, but the postures changed over time.

Then I found out that these kids were naturists and being photographed nude wasn't anything that they thought was strange, so now I knew the reason of them being portraited as they were since this is the way they live.

I have all Jock's books except for the Japanese one (since it's too expensive for me) and I still eBay his images just to see a new one every now and then.

BTW! If you ever have a chance to see his latest title - Life Time I can recommend it strongly. The book is huge, but the prints are the far best images I have ever seen. They almost feel as they are handprinted. The printing-technology has truly come a long way.

/ Marcus

"But in one case, Sturges’ family relationship with his young models went a step further. When he was 28 he conducted a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old named Jennifer Montgomery."
If this is true.
Alarm bells, alarm bells!
If it is not true, how come alleged?

Harry Hollis said:

"But in one case, Sturges’ family relationship with his young models went a step further. When he was 28 he conducted a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old named Jennifer Montgomery."
If this is true.
Alarm bells, alarm bells!
If it is not true, how come alleged?

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This is exactly what I am talking about. See how quickly and easily it is done? Congrats!

Harry Hollis said:

"But in one case, Sturges’ family relationship with his young models went a step further. When he was 28 he conducted a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old named Jennifer Montgomery."
If this is true.
Alarm bells, alarm bells!
If it is not true, how come alleged?

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This is what I don't understand about; if she was fourteen and he was twenty eight - it is jail time. Period! I don't care if she or he says it was consensual or not, if it is proven to be true then you are gonna be spending some time with a guy named Bubba in an 8X10 cell. Period!

Since there was no (mandatory) jail time sentenced that tells me one thing; there was no proof. If there is no proof, then everyone needs to shut their damn mouths about this. It is really easy to sit behind you computer screen and pass judgment on other people using the "gospel truth" that you have found with the assistance of the all knowing and omnipotent god we call Google.

I have no idea what the truth is, but above I gave you my opinion. I could also probably state for a certainty that you do not know what the truth is either. I would suggest if you have no first hand knowledge of this (were you there?) that you should probably shut your mouth.

Tim M said:

Period!

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I generally agree with your post. This word, though, might need to be qualified. The age-of-consent laws are rather quirky and don't necessarily amount to "period" as an accurate summary. 14 appears to be "legal" in some places under some circumstances. Not to get all "Wikipedia" on you... but there are Wiki summaries of age-of-consent in the US and worldwide.

Tim M said:

I don't know about everyone else but I consider a controversy bottom-feeder one who creates the controversy themselves in order to gain recognition. That does, in no way, resemble Sturges. The hellatious nightmare of events that was unleashed on him in 1990 was not of his own construction.

He has endured and maybe, maybe not, profited from the event. Would you in the same situation not take any small advantage that you could take form a similar event? I am not saying that he has or hasn't milked it; but if I, myself didn't take full advantage of such a situation, I would consider myself a damn fool.

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I'm a pretty open minded guy - I mean I think people should be free to walk nude anywhere, buy marijuana at the corner store, and basically do anything that harms nobody else... and I have an incomplete view of the story... maybe I should learn more about Sturges.

I guess right now I'm judging him by the associations - if you go to amazon and look at "customers who bought this [sturges's book] also bought.." you'll find all kinds of gems, like:

"The Voyeur (Director's Cut) DVD ~ Franco Branciaroli"
"Touch: Naked girls home alone by Stephanie Kuhne"

Plus countless books about nude young girls and innocence.

I dunno, it's not the majority of them and it used to be worse (last time I looked a couple of years ago, the representation of porn amongst the "customer's also bought these items" list was bigger).

There's just this whole vibe of exploring prepubescent sexuality about it.

Sure, one can ask why do the children have to be nude, but at the same time since they are naturists and Jock visits them where they live/spend their hollidays, should they have to dress up just to get phtotographed when they are nude all day long and that is their natural way of living?

I think that the answere to this is: No.

I think that the text in the interview really says it all:

quote

When I went back to Europe in the midst of this investigation, I was avoiding a lot of compositional angles that I thought might be problematic, something I had never done before. My wife caught me doing this; she caught me crossing legs and on a few occasions even throwing towels on people. She told me to stop and said that I was effectively instructing my models in shame.

end quote

/ Marcus

I have no idea what the truth is, but above I gave you my opinion. I could also probably state for a certainty that you do not know what the truth is either. I would suggest if you have no first hand knowledge of this (were you there?) that you should probably shut your mouth.

Is this referring to me?
If not OK.

If it is, I was merely commenting on material contained within this thread. I haven't got a clue what the 'truth is' and you shouldn't be so bloody rude.

BrianShaw said:

I generally agree with your post. This word, though, might need to be qualified. The age-of-consent laws are rather quirky and don't necessarily amount to "period" as an accurate summary. 14 appears to be "legal" in some places under some circumstances. Not to get all "Wikipedia" on you... but there are Wiki summaries of age-of-consent in the US and worldwide.

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Okay.... well let's say this then. If 14 years of age does happen to be legal where the alleged event happened; and let's just say, for conversation sake, it did happen. If fourteen is of legal age then there was no crime committed and in the case nobody did anything wrong... but there are those who will still jump on their moral high horse and be the defenders of all things evil.

My point being... after several years of governmental investigations I would think if the man was guilty...

I am with Walter23 on this one. I have no heartburn with what Sturges is photographing, from an artist's point of view. Actually, I find his work not all that good, compared to others in similar pursuits. I think Hamilton does much better work, artistically speaking.

My concern is: who are the consumers of Sturges products? He is making a darned good living at it an I can make a pretty good guess who is doing the majority of the buying, and that bothers me. And I am certain Sturges is acutely aware of his customer base, which raises another moral question. I am also concerned that the material might otherwise stimulate predators into acting on their impulses.

Kind of like the person who sells a firearm to an unlikely hunter, suspecting that there is the possibility that it might be used in criminal activities.

Not a good thing in my view,

-F.

Harry Hollis said:

I have no idea what the truth is, but above I gave you my opinion. I could also probably state for a certainty that you do not know what the truth is either. I would suggest if you have no first hand knowledge of this (were you there?) that you should probably shut your mouth.

Is this referring to me?
If not OK.

If it is, I was merely commenting on material contained within this thread. I haven't got a clue what the 'truth is' and you shouldn't be so bloody rude.

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I find this to be remarkably amusing... you are calling me rude? I have never without proof accused or suggested that someone was guilty of improper conduct with minors.

Me rude? Laughable.

Fred Aspen said:

I am with Walter23 on this one. I have no heartburn with what Sturges is photographing, from an artist's point of view. Actually, I find his work not all that good, compared to others in similar pursuits. I think Hamilton does much better work, artistically speaking.

My concern is: who are the consumers of Sturges products? He is making a darned good living at it an I can make a pretty good guess who is doing the majority of the buying, and that bothers me. And I am certain Sturges is acutely aware of his customer base, which raises another moral question. I am also concerned that the material might otherwise stimulate predators into acting on their impulses.

Not a good thing in my view,

-F.

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Have any of you ever studied pedophiles, what causes pedophilia or what turns pedophiles on? We all assume that we know things... when in fact if we have never studied them we are really just basing our knowledge on what we have heard and on our own assumptions.

I think if people would take time to studio pedophilia it would absolutely astonish you what it is all about and what it is exactly that drives these individuals... it is not naked photos of children.