Let’s talk nude.

[wyofilm]

Elliott Erwitt
East Hampton, New York, 1983

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I guess I’m looking for information more along the lines of “what is the purpose, what should I look for in a nude, or rather what should I be looking to capture?” Is it lines, shape, tonality in lighting? What would a nude provide me with that a pepper, melon, or toilet can’t? Are nudes done simply because peppers don’t have appendages like arms and legs that can move and change the lines and curves instantly?

That's the $64,000 question. And as Ignatiu5 said, the why is very much up to you. Especially with that specific model. Nudity for the sake of nudity is boring. Nudity as a metaphor or abstraction has more meaning and makes the images have some resonance beyond "oo look, a penis!". How you achieve that is very much up to you- you can achieve that through posing, lighting, composition, background, and/or props. This is not to say you have to do this on your first try at it - most of us who have shot nudes have gone through a period in our early years at it where we've made images that we look back on and go "my god what was I thinking... or more to the point, I wasn't".

As others have suggested, look at nude work by some of the established masters of it and identify things in their work that resonate with you. If you're thinking of studio work, then look at Ruth Bernhard and Robert Mapplethorpe and John Dugdale. For outdoor/natural light work, Jock Sturges, F. Holland Day, Herb Ritts, Wilhelm Von Gloeden, Bill Brandt, to name a few. Look at what they're saying and how they're saying it.

Figure out the difference between art, erotica and porn. They're all valid and all have their audiences and their conventions, and decide which genre you want to work in. I think the best definition
of porn is that it works on only one level, and it is the same every single time you see it. Erotica can be more complicated - it can be both sexually and aesthetically stimulating, but its first goal is still sexual stimulation. Art can be sexually stimulating, but it has as a first goal intellectual and/or aesthetic engagement, with any eroticism as a happy after-effect.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

This is going to sound repetitive to my prior response, but what do you (and your husband) want to accomplish by shooting nudes? In some ways, it sounds like you’re approaching it from an academic or formulaic perspective: owned a wedding studio - check, shot landscapes – check, did some nudes – check.

I don’t think there’s an absolute should in nude work (or in photography, for that matter). If you want anonymous lines, shape, and tonality, then good. If you want to capture a sliver of your husband’s personality, a little glimpse of how you see him, equally good. Abstract? Fine. Erotica? Equally fine.

When you look at others’ nude work, what are the things that make you think, “I wish I had shot that. I wonder how s/he created that mood/lighting/feeling.”? What makes you yawn? If the differences between peppers and people don’t compel you to shoot the latter, I would suggest that it’s far easier just shooting peppers. If your reason is to improve your skill, you don’t need a nude model to accomplish that. I'm not trying to dissuade you from attempting nudes, I'm just suggesting that understanding your own goals and motivations (and not those of other photographers) might guide both your process and your outcomes.

I, want to do nudes as a way to improve skill, if there's skill to be found by doing it. My husband just wants to do nudes simply because he likes being naked. He would live in a "naturalist" colony if he could. Most often, I find nudes of women uninteresting. I can't look at a nude of a woman and see the same beauty that I see when I look at a nude of a male. And there's definitely a different feeling when I look at a porn photo, vs an "artful" photo. With porn its just about the excitement, but with an artful photo I see the tonality, the lines of the muscles, the raw power of the male form. I guess it would be the same if I were to look at photos of a dainty arabian mare, and a large clydesdale stud. There's a lot more muscle, size, power in the stud than there is in the mare. I draw that analogy just to point out that I recognize the difference in art vs sexuality. Thank you for giving me some really good things to think about.

You're asking US for the purpose of something YOU want to do? Either you want to do it, then you have your reasons and you need to look inward to understand them. Or you don't want to do it, then you need to free yourself from whatever is telling you that you should. Or you're looking for a formula for a good nude, like the formula for a portrait you say you worked with. There's no such thing, nudes can be done many different ways.

I find I'm doing a lot of looking inward lately - spiritually, physically, mentally. I've said this before, but I'm a recovering alcoholic and this journey of creative self discovery has been a tremendous eye opener about me as a person. It's very interesting how our art very closely parallels our life. It's only now, at 40 years old, that I am discovering who I really am, and what I want to be. It's the same with my photography. Although I've photographed since I was 15, I always did it to gain the approval of others. I know I have a talent with photography, I am just in the process of refining it, and making it my own.

Nudity as a metaphor or abstraction has more meaning and makes the images have some resonance beyond "oo look, a penis!". How you achieve that is very much up to you- you can achieve that through posing, lighting, composition, background, and/or props. This is not to say you have to do this on your first try at it - most of us who have shot nudes have gone through a period in our early years at it where we've made images that we look back on and go "my god what was I thinking... or more to the point, I wasn't".

As others have suggested, look at nude work by some of the established masters of it and identify things in their work that resonate with you. If you're thinking of studio work, then look at Ruth Bernhard and Robert Mapplethorpe and John Dugdale. For outdoor/natural light work, Jock Sturges, F. Holland Day, Herb Ritts, Wilhelm Von Gloeden, Bill Brandt, to name a few. Look at what they're saying and how they're saying it.

Figure out the difference between art, erotica and porn. They're all valid and all have their audiences and their conventions, and decide which genre you want to work in. I think the best definition
of porn is that it works on only one level, and it is the same every single time you see it. Erotica can be more complicated - it can be both sexually and aesthetically stimulating, but its first goal is still sexual stimulation. Art can be sexually stimulating, but it has as a first goal intellectual and/or aesthetic engagement, with any eroticism as a happy after-effect.

I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. Metaphor's and abstraction is what I don't quite understand, and I guess that's an intellectual level that I'm trying to reach. This is one of my favorite photos of yours. What I love about this photo is the high contrast, and the lines of his muscles. That curve down his neck, across his shoulder, and down his arm is very delicate, yet you can see the power there. There is no flatness to this image. Everything from the skin texture, to the muscles, and even that vein popping out on his bicep is interesting. It's not just a "oh look the top of his penis" image. When I look at this image I find myself looking at everything, as a whole, but also in little parts.

So what was your metaphor or abstraction in this one, if there were any? I think hearing your perspective on this one, would greatly help me understand a little more.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

Thanks to everyone who has patiently taken the time to respond. Most all of you have given me great things to think about, and I really appreciate your questions and advice.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I, want to do nudes as a way to improve skill, if there's skill to be found by doing it. My husband just wants to do nudes simply because he likes being naked. He would live in a "naturalist" colony if he could. Most often, I find nudes of women uninteresting. I can't look at a nude of a woman and see the same beauty that I see when I look at a nude of a male. And there's definitely a different feeling when I look at a porn photo, vs an "artful" photo. With porn its just about the excitement, but with an artful photo I see the tonality, the lines of the muscles, the raw power of the male form. I guess it would be the same if I were to look at photos of a dainty arabian mare, and a large clydesdale stud. There's a lot more muscle, size, power in the stud than there is in the mare. I draw that analogy just to point out that I recognize the difference in art vs sexuality. Thank you for giving me some really good things to think about.




I find I'm doing a lot of looking inward lately - spiritually, physically, mentally. I've said this before, but I'm a recovering alcoholic and this journey of creative self discovery has been a tremendous eye opener about me as a person. It's very interesting how our art very closely parallels our life. It's only now, at 40 years old, that I am discovering who I really am, and what I want to be. It's the same with my photography. Although I've photographed since I was 15, I always did it to gain the approval of others. I know I have a talent with photography, I am just in the process of refining it, and making it my own.



I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. Metaphor's and abstraction is what I don't quite understand, and I guess that's an intellectual level that I'm trying to reach. This is one of my favorite photos of yours. What I love about this photo is the high contrast, and the lines of his muscles. That curve down his neck, across his shoulder, and down his arm is very delicate, yet you can see the power there. There is no flatness to this image. Everything from the skin texture, to the muscles, and even that vein popping out on his bicep is interesting. It's not just a "oh look the top of his penis" image. When I look at this image I find myself looking at everything, as a whole, but also in little parts.

So what was your metaphor or abstraction in this one, if there were any? I think hearing your perspective on this one, would greatly help me understand a little more.

This one was not so much metaphor as it was about the form and structure of his body. On a certain level, any black-and-white image is an abstraction, because the real world isn't in black and white. I was reacting to his pose- I saw him standing in a particular way and I reacted to the shape and the positive/negative space his body created. It's also an abstraction in that while it is obviously the body of a specific person, there's no face or other clear identifier to make it a portrait, and it's not even a whole body, just a crop. It's been composed in such a way to provide tension - He's extending out of the frame on three sides, and not touching one at all, so there's dramatic movement in a static subject.

 

[Jim Jones]

A useful book for the student of the nude is The Model by William Mortensen. First published in 1937, it covers the basics that are mostly valid today. A preview is available at https://archive.org/details/TheModelByWilliamMortensen/page/n37/mode/2up, and it can be downloaded from the same site. A third somewhat condensed edition, retitled how to Pose the Model, was published in 1955 and has recently been republished. It should still be available. I prefer the first and nearly identical 2nd editions. They are available used online. Do not be deterred by the once famous feud between Mortensen and Ansel Adams. Adams even referred to Mortensen as the Antichrist! However, each was a master in his own style. Be warned: most of Mortensen's models were female.

 

[removedacct1]

Thanks to everyone who has patiently taken the time to respond. Most all of you have given me great things to think about, and I really appreciate your questions and advice.

Christopher,
I would add that since your model is someone with whom you have a special relationship, it might be worth thinking about this as an opportunity to explore the nature of that relationship, and create a personal visual language to describe its unique properties. This can extend to social issues of prejudice, isolation, judgement, etc., something most homosexuals must navigate when building their own family.
I'm in a relationship with my husband for 23 years now (married since 2015) and though I've rarely photographed us (together or individually), I have certainly thought about doing work that explores the issues that are unique to our relationship, especially how they impact our relationship to the rest of humanity.

 

[Helge]

Nude of course has the eternal problem of "are you just documenting something already beautiful"?
Like photographing a sculpture or including a painting or graffiti; are you actually contributing something new and valuable with your photo?
Or are you just leeching off of the natural beauty of the object or person?

I find that 99,9 percent of all nude photography fall into the last category.
Nothing wrong with that per se. But I say, leave that to commercial photographers, who do model shoots, soft or hardcore porn and who enjoy getting ladys to strip in front of them to "do art".
It very quickly becomes very obvious what is going on in most of these "art" photos.

Nude will always have something sexual about it, unless we are talking children or dead bodies. Sometimes aversely sexual, but still...
The trick and art, and very, very difficult thing, is to have it as something interesting. An aspect of the photo, without it overwhelming the image or be the sole center of focus.

I can only think of very few people who have succeeded in doing that, in the history of photography.
Helmut Newton is one.

 

[Vaughn]

...Or are you just leaching off of the natural beauty of the object or person?...

Interesting comment...I would say this describes 99.9% of all photographs...and about the same percentage of viewers expect and want that.

 

[Helge]

Interesting comment...I would say this describes 99.9% of all photographs...and about the same percentage of viewers expect and want that.

No, you can definitely substantially add to or radically transform something beautiful or completely mundane or boring, by photographing it right.
And it doesn’t necessarily at all mean you have to get weird or extreme.
Sometimes the almost disinterested look at something beautiful or mundane and boring (or both), can elevate the object to new heights.

Just photographing a naked or clothed beautifully woman in generic good photo light, is at best just documenting the beauty.

 

[Vaughn]

No, you can definitely substantially add to or radically transform something beautiful or completely mundane or boring, by photographing it right.
...

Agreed, but that is still only 0.1% of all photographs taken -- nudes, landscapes, snapshots, and so on. I am just extending what you said to all photographic efforts -- not just nudes. And extending it to what most viewers expect from a photograph.

 

[removedacct1]

Agreed, but that is still only 0.1% of all photographs taken -- nudes, landscapes, snapshots, and so on. I am just extending what you said to all photographic efforts -- not just nudes. And extending it to what most viewers expect from a photograph.

Although I agree with what Vaughn says here, I also believe from my own experience that photographic nudes are especially difficult terrain: creating something that escapes the gravity of eroticism is extremely difficult, and I find it rare for any photographer to succeed at making nudes that do not have erotic intent, whether the photographer is aware of it or not.

 

[Vaughn]

There is a whole bunch of baggage that comes from men photographing nude women...social, cultural, sexual, and historical (did I miss any?) And that baggage can only be ignored at one's peril when one presents those images to society.

 

[removedacct1]

There is a whole bunch of baggage that comes from men photographing nude women...social, cultural, sexual, and historical (did I miss any?) And that baggage can only be ignored at one's peril when one presents those images to society.

Very true, and the fact that we no longer live in a society that takes the objectification of human bodies lightly, makes it a very different environment than when Edward was photographing Charis.

 

[Vaughn]

I believe for the image by EW of Tina nude, but partially wrapped in bandages, Edward hired a doctor to come and apply the bandages -- it was the proper thing to do if one was to show the images to the public at the time, in Mexico.

 

[Pieter12]

Lucien Clergue wrote a couple of books about photographing nudes (mostly female): Practical Nude Photography and Nude Workshop.

 

[Helge]

Well, I think Weston while undoubtably a very great photographer, only partially succeeded in his nudes.
A few of them are so graphically beautiful, that the sexual tension and the composition become one and enhance each other.
In other photos, it’s pretty obvious that he is banging the hell of out of them before and after.
Nothing wrong in that, it just isn’t particularly interesting as photographs or pornography.

Realistic depiction of the female body has always been fraught with conflicting emotions and taboos. Right back to the Greeks where we have the earliest historical discussions. And of course further back too. Nothing new in that.
It’s a conflict that is not meant to be resolved or is possible to avoid.

Agreed, but that is still only 0.1% of all photographs taken -- nudes, landscapes, snapshots, and so on. I am just extending what you said to all photographic efforts -- not just nudes. And extending it to what most viewers expect from a photograph.

What is only 0,1%? Stephen Shore, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank type stuff?
That was just an example.

If I knew the surefire way to photograph nude “right”, I’d bottle it and sell it.
It’s something that case by case and person by person has to be rediscovered.

 

[Pieter12]

The Eloquent Nude is a really interesting pseudo-doucmentary about Weston & Wilson (the historical footage is recreated), featuring interviews of Charis Wilson a few years before she died.

 

[Vaughn]

...What is only 0,1%? Stephen Shore, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank type stuff?
That was just an example,,.

It is just a comment about the high percentage of images made just to represent what is in front of the camera. One of the cameras' main attributes. If one wishes to catalog photographers who have intent beyond just representation, I suppose one must include many "Madison Avenue" designer/photographers. The intent is to sell, but intent that goes beyond just representing the object being sold. The Male Gaze being an obvious composition tool that is often used.

 

[koraks]

'Nudes' are quite prominent in my own photography. I'd say that I spend at least half the time I can dedicate to photography on nudes, which would fall mostly in the middle category of the three that @TheFlyingCamera defined (and that I think have some face validity, although that division is a bit of a simplification): it's mostly erotica, some of it perhaps moves a bit towards art, some of it tends more towards porn, although it's mostly and very deliberately (!) positioned pretty much somewhere in between those two. Making porn has never much appealed to me due to its conceptual flatness, neither has making 'pure' art where the nude is more often than not stripped of its inherent erotic charge. This is not to say that I dislike either of those categories or consider them as inferior. They're just not my cup of tea when it comes to making them. I can, and do, enjoy appealing art that features nudity, and likewise for good porn - although I'm sad to say, I couldn't give many examples of pornographic images that I'd consider really successful in the sense of being effective in its intent as well as aesthetically pleasing. I suppose the more talented porn photographers are snowed under in the mass of run-off-the-mill 'explicit imagery manufacturers'. So that's where I stand, and that's what may help in interpreting what I'd like to say about the topic.

'Nude' just doesn't say much; there are many dimensions to a photograph that happens to have 'people with less clothes than normal' in them. There are many approaches to all these dimensions, and they stretch far beyond the simplistic dichotomy hinted at above that confuses several of these dimensions. Neither am I happy with the sentiment that shines through in some posts that 'art' is somehow superior to other approaches to nudes. If art is your goal; fine, define for yourself what you believe art is and start making it. But there are other motivations for 'doing nudes', and if they are viable/defensible/permissible is an ethical question that is very difficult (and I'd say impossible) to categorically determine based on the image alone. If art is more valuable than any other form of depicting a (partly) naked body is equally impossible to say just like that.

So I think my message in considering nude photography is to really break the concept down into specific dimensions and determine where you (want to) stand with respect to each of them. Many of them have popped up already in this thread. Think of the intent of the image, which can be to convey a feeling or a more conceptual message, or it may just want to be aesthetically pleasing and explore a certain form, geometry or graphical archetype. There's the interest in the human form, or the interest in form, shape and light in general, leading to a more graphical approach or compositional choices. There may be an interest in human relationships and also sexuality, or an interest in capturing or perhaps even triggering/prodding the viewer to entice them to respond in some way. There's the relationship between model and photographer, which can be either a facilitating factor that allows the desired vision to be realized, or it may be the central driving force or the creative source behind actually making an image. There's the relationship between humans (one, a select group, or humanity as a whole) and our environment, whether it's the 'dead' environment of inanimate objects, our natural/biological environment or our social environment, and a special case is the intimate relationship between two (or perhaps three, or four) specific individuals with its own complex dynamic which may inspire an image. There's the conceptual layer of abstract constructs or philosophical thought, or the fundamental human emotions that may be translated the most effectively if clothes don't distract from the 'naked truth'. There's the special case of ethics which we could explore by using nudity as an inherently debatable and debated notion. There's the state of mind, emotional development or personal journey of the photographer/image maker him/herself that leads them to use nudity in photography to capture or perhaps even further this personal/internal development.

There are so many things that can hide behind the seemingly simple image of normally unseen skin. Simplifying that into typology/taxonomy, or, God forbid, trying to draw a line between 'good' and 'bad' based on quite superficial and distant considerations, it's just...such a waste, really. Of course, there's the ethical aspect that has been mentioned before - given the fact that nudity is, and probably will remain, a bit of an iffy topic for some (many) in our society, and that your chosen role as a photographer is to deliberately expose a side of a person that is usually not seen by others, brings the responsibility to think about and also discuss/decide together how and under which conditions this can be done. But really, I think that's a matter of basic respect and common sense, and it should go without saying (although sadly, that's apparently not always the case.)

So I can only conclude that if anyone wants to try this, please, by all means go ahead. Don't feel yourself restricted by what others say or how they may easily dismiss one thing while idolizing another. But do think thoroughly about what you're doing or about to do. Not because 'you must', but because it's so worthwhile to explore, at least in your mind, all the aspects of this particular niche, and then decide in which direction you'd like to take it.

It would be so super nice if we could somehow get past the (often ill-disguised) normative responses that so many people have, and which generally blocks discussions of these from getting to the more interesting aspects of this topic.

 

[Helge]

Nothing is wrong per se in photography or art in general.
But there is such a thing as cliché and retreading really, really well worn ground.

WRT to some of the other assertions in your paper above, it’s remarkable how often “the exploration of human shape and sexuality involves the beautiful female. Or in the case of the rare gay photographer, beautiful men.

Part of art, low or high, is saying something new. That could involve taking an old stereotype for a new spin in subtle ways, but it doesn’t involve doing what is essentially soft core porn.
In the same way photographing flowers or food “on the nose” is trite.
You can do it of course, in that same way you can retread a lot of other ground as an exercise, but don’t expect people to take it any kind of serious.
Do it for yourself.

 

[koraks]

Not all photography aspires to be art or has to live up to that aspiration. In fact, from an artistic viewpoint, the world of photography is pretty bleak. It's about 99.99% cliche, postcard, look-how-pretty, this-was-fun, I-was-here/did-this etc. with variation in quality of technical execution. And yet, that doesn't render this vast majority of photographic images irrelevant or meaningless. If people do it for themselves, or a select audience, there's nothing wrong with that. I applaud those who keep out of the "photography should aspire to be art" police.

 

[faberryman]

I applaud those who keep out of the "photography should aspire to be art" police.

Do you really feel policed? I've been involved in photography for quite a while, and never heard of this.

 

[koraks]

No, I don't personally feel policed. I do find it a pity that discussions about nude photography virtually always feature some posters who are condescending towards anything that's not art in their view, while they never are outspoken about tuis if it's about photographing trees, architecture etc. The risk then emerges that the discussion gets stuck on ethics, on definitions of art (both relevant and vaiable topics, but not as and end-all) or that those those who don't necessarily aspire to produce art are silenced or marginalized. For some reason, the topic of nude photography seems too easily to devolve into a search for a superior moral position. I find that sad.

 

[removedacct1]

No, I don't personally feel policed. I do find it a pity that discussions about nude photography virtually always feature some posters who are condescending towards anything that's not art in their view, while they never are outspoken about tuis if it's about photographing trees, architecture etc. The risk then emerges that the discussion gets stuck on ethics, on definitions of art (both relevant and vaiable topics, but not as and end-all) or that those those who don't necessarily aspire to produce art are silenced or marginalized. For some reason, the topic of nude photography seems too easily to devolve into a search for a superior moral position. I find that sad.

The biggest issue I have with photographic nudes is that the vast majority of photographers are producing images that cannot be defined as anything but porn, and calling it art. Its pretty obvious when a nude photograph is created for the core purpose of soliciting an erotic response in the viewer. If a photographer wants to make sexy images of a nude figure, that's fine, but don't label it "art" when making art wasn't the real intent.