The Power of Nudity??

Jeff Kubach · Aug 26, 2008

Near where I live there is a resturant that put a Greek nude scupture outside. I didn't take offense, but there was a lot of flak in the local newspaper about it. The resturant left it up despite the fuss.

Jeff

Akki14 · Aug 26, 2008

gerryyaum said:
What do you thing of Robert Mapplethorpes work?

We'll I've only seen some of his flower photographs and his portfolio X at a show earlier this year. The images in X are rather cringeworthy as far as some subject matter but at least they are interesting and well executed photographs. I'm not quite sure I'd claim those images in particular were Fine Art Nude so much as fetish to shock the audience. Also I seem to recalled not all of the images in that portfolio are nude in any case. Even the infamous bull whip one isn't a nude.
So I somewhat decline to give a full opinion on all of Mapplethorpe's nude work.

Bob F. · Aug 26, 2008

TheFlyingCamera said:
Nice to know we have a peer of the realm amongst us. Pop over to Windsor often for tea in the Waterloo Chamber?

I wrote that rather late at night. In the cold light of day it occurs that it was possibly a bit obscure...

"Honi soit qui mal y pense" : Evil be to he who evil thinks (or summat like that)... Taken in context of the Order Of The Garter, it means do not go around assuming the worst of others.

I was suggesting it be taken up as a motto by those who can only attribute the most basest of instincts to all nude image making.

Well, I do live less than ten miles from Windsor Castle... Unfortunately, neither Her Maj nor Prince Chas has invited me around yet. There can only be (I think) 24 Companions of the Garter at any one time so I'll probably have to wait for Maggie Thatcher to drop off her perch before getting the Royal nod...

Cheers, Bob.

TheFlyingCamera · Aug 26, 2008

Mapplethorpe's work, especially the X portfolio, was very much about shock value, although much of it is highly informed by classical art - there was a book put out a year or two ago showing his nudes in the context of the 16th to 18th century engravings that inspired his photographs. Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition is the title, if you have the chance to look for it. Even the classical stuff, which is HIGHLY formal, has some of the shock value, showing a nude black male dancing with a clothed white female, for example, but that is as much a political statement about the times in which he lived and worked. In all, his work is very multi-layered, and if you allow yourself to look past the shock value, there is something there.

clay · Aug 26, 2008

Somebody had a hilarious signature line here a few years back, something to the effect of: "Now you put your naked model next to a plinth or a column, that's the ticket. Art, you understand". Works for me.

haris · Aug 26, 2008

And movie Dirty pictures, about exhibition of Mapplethorphe's work in Cincinnaty, starring James Woods (http://www.missliberty.com/Filmdirtypix.html, http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0217363/), shows some of it. Especially comments in "documantary" part of movie.

Rolleiflexible · Aug 26, 2008

gerryyaum said:
Someone once told me that when you include a face in a picture it is no longer a nude, it becomes a portrait.

Oh I get it now. Playboy and
Penthouse publish portraits.

Lee L · Aug 26, 2008

Rolleiflexible said:
Oh I get it now. Playboy and
Penthouse publish portraits.

I hear they sometimes retouch them, so they may not be "realistic" representations.

Lee

Saganich · Aug 26, 2008

I think geryyaum and Maris are on the right track with this. Our fascination with naked may be that it is a strong indication that we have no nature and we are interpreted all the way down by the culture be are born into. The culture specifies all the possible ways we can be human and we can only understand ourselves within this context. The fact is we are born men and women, but this fact is transformed into masculine and feminine by culture. Culture has taken over all our facts and transformed them into social interpretation. We can only be understood by ourselves after the transformation simply because we are concerned with such things, unlike a beaver who probably isn't concerned with his beaverness.

Naked is the juxtaposition of the fact of human and the facticity (or interpretation) of human. Although we use our facticity as our reference for self-referal and understanding we can never really be defined by it because we are misinterpreting facticity as our essential nature, (the mistake made by those citing our animal nature.) This misrepresentation is, so to speak, necessary because is grounds us in the world as an object with properties. It is unsettling to think we are without nature or meaning and everything about us is an interpretation. Again, naked brings us face to face with this strange characteristic of our existence.

lightwisps · Nov 22, 2009

Interesting discussion. While I am registered as Lightwisps, that is what we call our photography arena.

We also are the owners of a quite successful art gallery just outside of Ottawa, Ontario. We have found that our nude photography sell quite well. While we have both B/W and ilfochcromes we find that the B/W sell better about 3 to 1.

I think that the female body is a really beautiful part of nature and I enjoy celebrating it. I also have to say that I have seen some male nudes that are incredible.

Anyone that wishes are welcome to email me at either Lightwisps or 3 Yellowtulips. We can be "Googled" under either name. I really enjoy discussing both photography and other art forms.

Be well

Don

Vincent Brady · Nov 22, 2009

I think that the female body is a really beautiful part of nature

My take on it is in that sentence above. Web sites like this are dominated by men and it is in our nature to enjoy looking at pictures of naked women. We are what we are.

TEX

mikebarger · Nov 22, 2009

Don't know about Penthouse, and haven't seen a Playboy in 20 years. What I've seen in the old Playboys isn't much different than some of the nudes here.

A nude is a nude, what else can you call it?

Mike

Anscojohn · Nov 22, 2009

Akki14 said:
Speak for yourself, I'm a redblooded hetero woman who likes female nudes. I'd like male nudes if they didn't mostly look like bad, cheese gay porn shots.

********
Well spoken, Heather.

Mike1234 · Nov 22, 2009

1. safety
2. water
3. food
4. shelter
5. sex

or is that...

1. safety
2. water
3. food
4. sex
5. shelter

or is that...

1. sex
2. sex
3. sex
4. sex
5. sex

??????

Though I can only speak for myself and look only at the girls.

Peter Black · Nov 22, 2009

Mike1234 said:
1. safety
2. water
3. food
4. shelter
5. sex

or is that...

1. safety
2. water
3. food
4. sex
5. shelter

or is that...

1. sex
2. sex
3. sex
4. sex
5. sex

??????

Though I can only speak for myself and look only at the girls.

OK Mike, so your first 2 versions have water for processing your films and prints, but I'm a bit confused by the third option. :confused:

Mike1234 · Nov 22, 2009

The third option is for those who've been deprived far too long.

Erik Petersson · Nov 23, 2009

MattKing said:
I wonder what the statistics would be if we lived in an environment where public nudity was both commonplace, and unremarkable.

Remember, I live in the country that produced the band known as the "Barenaked Ladies".

Matt

I spent some time in north eastern Germany last summer. It is not uncommon to go swimming on public beaches there, without any clothes. Public saunas are naturally mixed. They call it "Freie Körperkultur", or FKK.

Poisson Du Jour · Nov 23, 2009

I am a naturist, and I have photographed naturists here in Australia and New Zealand for more than 20 years at resorts, beaches, camping, driving, skydiving and bungee jumping (and before you ask, the last two are a little uncomfortable done nude). My forthcoming project over the Christmas-New Year break is to photograph nudes (both genders) in natural rainforest settings using my Pinhole camera, movement and multi-exposure. And the great thing about all this is the "models" (plucked at random) are (un)dressed the same as me, so they are completely at ease — even those that haven't appeared before my camera.

If you want to be successful with nudists (naturists), you need to get down to their level — that means strip and join them.

Playboy and Penthouse are both absolute rubbish — always have been, always will be. That porn is wowserish, exploitative and degrading, additional to being heavily airbrushed. I prefer to photograph and interact with the real thing without pretention or showy dollying-up courtesy that bloody Photoshop tripe.

Mike1234 · Nov 23, 2009

Ehh... you're just jealous of our Playboy Bunnies.

Thomassauerwein · Dec 14, 2009

Dinesh said:
Keep in mind that if seals had thumbs, they would be clubbing us!

LOL!!! Rightfully so!

Ed Sukach · Dec 15, 2009

I don't think that playboy has published nudes for years. What appears to be a nude girl is now coated ... no, LAYERED, in body make-up. I think they apply it with trowels.
Joke from twenty years ago... "We're having trouble with that new model .. she keeps sliding all over the place."
The work there is a bizarre xample of 'overworking' ... no one is flawless and those body-made-up images are cold, lifeless, artificial.
Sexy? Wander around downtown until you find a window dresser assembling a mannequin. FAR more enticing than Playboy.

In a way, it is a great shame ... I was a great fan of Playboy at its inception. Now the whole magazine is an artificial wreck.

Vaughn · Dec 15, 2009

Poisson Du Jour said:
I am a naturist...

Right on!

Having been to both clothed-only and clothes-optional beaches as a young USA-certified horny male, I would say that the only difference between the two is that the clothes-optional beaches were much more relaxing. That and one had to use more sunscreen...

One of the most beautiful, non-erotic sights in the world is that of a mother breast-feeding a child in public. It stirs the heart, not the gonads.

Vaughn

photoeclipse · Sep 16, 2012

Saganich said:
We can only be understood by ourselves after the transformation simply because we are concerned with such things, unlike a beaver who probably isn't concerned with his beaverness.

In the context of this discussion, am I the only one who found this an interesting choice of metaphor?

photopriscilla · Feb 26, 2014

Thank you for your comment! I don't think that there is much that one cannot communicate without clothes on! I think that we already had our sexual revolution. I am certain that there is the odd photo that really needs to have the subject without clothes, but mostly it is just voyeurism.

Berkeley Mike · Sep 26, 2018

Saganich said:
I think geryyaum and Maris are on the right track with this. Our fascination with naked may be that it is a strong indication that we have no nature and we are interpreted all the way down by the culture be are born into. The culture specifies all the possible ways we can be human and we can only understand ourselves within this context. The fact is we are born men and women, but this fact is transformed into masculine and feminine by culture. Culture has taken over all our facts and transformed them into social interpretation. We can only be understood by ourselves after the transformation simply because we are concerned with such things, unlike a beaver who probably isn't concerned with his beaverness.

Naked is the juxtaposition of the fact of human and the facticity (or interpretation) of human. Although we use our facticity as our reference for self-referal and understanding we can never really be defined by it because we are misinterpreting facticity as our essential nature, (the mistake made by those citing our animal nature.) This misrepresentation is, so to speak, necessary because is grounds us in the world as an object with properties. It is unsettling to think we are without nature or meaning and everything about us is an interpretation. Again, naked brings us face to face with this strange characteristic of our existence.

I like where you have gone with this, in general.

To refine in this vein, I suggest that this "facticity" is secondary to the primary experience. The instantaneous experience, the moment of visual/tactile/auditory/aromatic/flavor perception, is uncontaminated by culture. This is not "facticity."

The very next moment, the hard-wired pure reflexive form like pulling back your had when it is burned by hot metal, can be seen as survival-oriented, a part of "our nature"; it is not learned. This is not “facticity.”

Consciously managing "our nature", what we do after perception and the immediate reaction, the cultural component, is the "facticity."

An aroma of food gets us salivating and then leads to memories of the food. We aren't taught to drool.

The Power of Nudity??

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