“Art is not chaste. Those ill-prepared should be allowed no contact with art. Art is dangerous. If it is chaste, it is not art.”
―Picasso
Contrary to the sentiments in one of my favorite quotes, “An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture” (from Jean Cocteau), it seems that I have quite a bit to say about my current project photographing Erotic Portraits/Nudes.
Here’s the short version: It seems I photograph my obsessions. My first book was on live rock concerts (Aerosmith to ZZ Top). My second book comprised over 20 years of my photographs taken in Cuba. I’m currently working on my 3rd fine art coffee table photography book, on what is thought to be the oldest subject of art known: Nudes.
Here’s the (much) longer version…
The Journey to the Nude:
After many years of shooting fine art and travel images and after my fine art coffee table photo book on Cuba was published, I was faced with the question of “well, what next?”
I have always been a subject-driven shooter in my fine art work. Rather than take photos just because I love photography (which I do), I took photos because I became obsessed with a subject.
I have been back to Cuba several times after the book was published - both teaching my travel photography workshops and just to visit, but an interesting thing happened on my last several trips there. While I still was in love with the country and loved being there, I couldn’t really “see” it any more photographically. It was like I was functionally blind, photographically speaking. Shooting travel images anywhere felt the same for me. I felt I had done that, said all I needed to say about travel photography and it was time to move on. But move on to what??
In her fantastic book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote the following:
Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind).
When I read this, a lightbulb clicked on. I am a creator. If I cannot create, then I cannot show up for the people I love most in my life. Creating is a basic need for me, that the pyramid of other basic needs (love, shelter, food) pivots on. Create or perish.
A quote from the poet Mary Oliver also comes to mind: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
So, I am a creator who needs to continue creating. However, as I said above, I felt I had said all I could say about Cuba and travel photography in general, and I needed to move on.
My interest and love of fine art nude photography spans a wide array of artists, including Edward Weston, Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton, Jock Sturges, Bill Brandt, Jeanloup Sieff, Irving Penn, and many others.
During my photo workshops, I always teach my participants to photograph what they love. If you don’t love your subject, how can you expect anyone looking at your art to love your work? My first book comprised images encompassing 10 years of live Rock ’n’ Roll shows. My second book contained over twenty years of my photography in Cuba. I loved and was obsessed with both subjects. So, photographing Νudes is simply my latest love/obsession.
Or as Nan Goldin much more eloquently said:
In my own life, I have been obsessed with photographing the people who were my lovers, had been my lovers, or whom I wanted as lovers. I wrote myself in as the lover. Sometimes, the obsession lasted for years. It was photography as the sublimation of sex, a means of seduction, and a way to remain a crucial part of my subjects’ lives. A chance to touch someone with a camera rather than physically. It is this notion—of being obsessed with someone, and, through photographs, making that person iconic—that resonates with me.
How often have we all looked at a beautiful, desirable stranger and wondered about that person—or to be more blunt—desired that person?
I think nudes are the most photographed subject ever; they are definitely the oldest art subject. Apart from cave drawings or cave paintings, the oldest discovered artwork is a sculpture named "Venus of Willendorf," a small figurine of a voluptuous female figure carved from limestone and believed to be around 25,000-30,000 years old. With her pronounced breasts, a rounded belly, enlarged buttocks, and detailed headgear, the exaggerated nature of these features have led some researchers to conclude that the figurine may represent fertility or a mother goddess.
So, I am now creating work in the oldest art subject that exists. Nudes.
The Face of Eros - How I photograph the nude:
“I quote others only in order to better express myself.”
—Michel de Montaigne
Much of travel photography involved aspects that are out of a photographer’s control: weather, light, the right people crossing one's path. I've always enjoyed the mixture of intense planning, mixed with serendipity. But I also somewhat envied painters (or, for that matter, studio photographers) in their ability to create from a completely blank canvas. 100% control. Additionally, I have always felt that my travel portraits (one of my favorite genres) were collaborations - you cannot create an interesting portrait of an unwilling subject. But I also wondered about a more intense, intimate, collaborative photographer/subject partnership.
I often see ոudes where bodies are reduced to objects, with as much sеxuality in the images as in a photo of a bag of rocks. I’ve often heard many photographers brag about and declare as their main goal in photographing nudes, (while certainly beautiful) to do so with literally zero sеxuality. Why? That is definitely not the way I see the world or a nаkеd woman - nor would I want to. I have always wondered about the real authentic sеxuality and humanness of the women in these images. I want the women to look at the images I photograph of them, and say, “Yes, that is really me - not just my body or my model persona”. A true еrοtic portrait.
I am drawn to emotionally evocative images that portray women as real people as opposed to objectifying images of parts of a woman’s body (so-called bodyscapes). I want to get a feel of who that nude woman really is. The artist/muse relationship has always fascinated me. The act of creating art with (and of) a muse is as old as art itself. In art and photography, artists falling in love with their subjects has manifested in subtle and overt ways, often adding layers of intimacy and depth to the images.
So, when so many people have said it better than I ever could, my philosophy of how I photograph the nude is much better expressed using their words. Here are several essays that have inspired me.
The structure of each shoot:
As I shoot the project (and look back at my previous work), I am (it seems) obsessed with the “moment of authenticity.” Whether it is shooting rock stars performing live, a dancer in Cuba or a nude in the studio. Of course, as soon as a subject is aware a camera is pointing at them, let alone someone coming to a studio to disrobe, it is by definition, not “real”. However, within the parameters of how I structure my shoots, I find it thrilling to collaborate with another human being to try and carve out a moment of true authenticity. I call it “manufactured reality”. I want, and try to achieve, a moment where the model is fully and truly authentically present and alive. There is no past, no future; in fact, my “model” has ceased for that one moment to be a “model” and is, in fact, “just” fully and completely themselves. When that happens, I find it exquisitely beautiful.
Since I am a fan of nude photography and nude work is the oldest art form, my aim with this project was to try and do something as different as I could. So, for me, that meant stripping away (no pun intended) everything I could to concentrate on the model’s authentic sexuality and emotion.
I structured and photographed the images around these parameters: one theme, one camera, one light, one backdrop, one vintage seventy-year-old large format (56mm f/1.9, 4x5) lens, one custom machined bellows (to tilt the lens for blurs), and (mostly) one woman. There was no A.I. (Midjourney, DALL·E, etc.) used. Zero to little retouching.
The Women - a.k.a. my creative partners/fellow artists:
I once had a very good friend of mine, who was a very successful commercial photographer in Los Angeles, say to me that casting was 85% of the success of any shoot. I often think about that piece of wisdom and think it was great advice and probably wrong. It’s been my experience, especially shooting nudes, that it’s probably closer to 95%. Without great casting, there is almost no point in doing the shoot.
So, how do I choose the women I work with? How do I cast? It turns out that I have many criteria and am very choosy about whom I work with. I usually look at 300-400 portfolios before reaching out to someone. Besides the obvious criteria of physical beauty (by far the easiest criteria to fulfill), I have the following additional criteria that I apply before reaching out to someone:
1. Ability to be a “not model”: Maybe the hardest quality to find. The ability to be a “real person” and drop the model facade in front of the camera.
2. Presence: They need to have a 10,000-watt personality. When they walk into a room (fully clothed), all heads turn.
3. Comfort being naked: the women I work with often say they are much more comfortable being naked than clothed.
4. Ownership: They really own their sexuality.
5. Articulateness: What on earth does a woman’s eloquence have to do with taking photos of her naked? I was surprised too! But after photographing more than 60 women (and still going), I have found the better the conversations are - the better the photos are. Every single time. Interpersonal emotional connection matters. Also, interesting conversations are fucking fun. And yes, the conversation always revolves around the subject of the shoots.
6. Experience & Joy: They are very experienced with being naked in front of the camera and really enjoy it. I never photograph women who are going in front of the camera for the first time.
7. Eagerness: They are enthusiastically eager to partner in creating the kind of work I am doing.
8. Power: By definition, when taking a portrait, the power balance always lies with the photographer. Hence, the word “taking” in “taking a portrait”. With these portraits, I was interested in balancing out that power dynamic by working with women who have very powerful and strong personalities.
9. Desire to be a collaborator/muse. The artist/muse relationship has always fascinated me. In art (and photography), artists falling in love with their subjects (Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Weston/Charis Wilson, Nan Goldin/Brian) has manifested in subtle and overt ways, often adding layers of intimacy and depth to the images.
I rarely, if ever, work with the same woman only once. Often it’s 2, 3 or more times. The criteria I used when working with a model again, besides creating great work together, is the same criteria I imagine one uses to decide whether to be friends with someone or continue a relationship - which is: how much fun did you have?
The Male Gaze
I'm feel compelled to address the topic around the "male gaze" with a level of candor that may strike some as unorthodox. The notion of the "male gaze" as a universally limiting factor in the creation of art is not only flawed but fundamentally misguided. It is a concept that has been stretched beyond its useful bounds and now risks becoming a hindrance to the very essence of art, which is freedom of expression and exploration of the human condition.
Coined by Laura Mulvey in the context of feminist film theory, the "male gaze" highlighted a real problem: the objectification of women in cinema. However, it has since been extrapolated and expanded to a point where it risks becoming a dogmatic lens through which all art by male artists, particularly those portraying the female form, is viewed. This does a disservice to the intricacies of the artistic process and the myriad motivations and perspectives of artists themselves.
The entire premise of the "male gaze" assumes a monolithic and unchanging perspective from all male artists, which is a gross oversimplification. Artists, regardless of their gender, are not one-dimensional. They are individuals shaped by a vast array of experiences and influences, capable of creating works of art that transcend their own identities and reach into the universality of human experiences. The assumption that male artists are inherently incapable of producing meaningful and respectful representations of the female form is not only unfair but also dismissive of the transformative potential of art.
Art is a realm where boundaries are meant to be pushed, stereotypes challenged, and new perspectives born. By treating the "male gaze" as an insurmountable barrier, we are limiting the potential for growth and innovation in art. Take, for instance, the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, a male artist who transformed the representation of the male nude in art, challenging taboos and bringing a traditionally marginalized perspective to mainstream galleries.
Moreover, the concept of the "male gaze" inadvertently places the onus of objectification solely on the creator, ignoring the role of the viewer in the interpretation of the art. It is a reductive approach that simplifies the complex dynamics of the viewer-artist relationship.
Let's not forget that art is subjective. What one viewer interprets as a representation of the "male gaze" might be seen by another as an exploration of form, an expression of emotion, or a commentary on societal norms. By insisting on a singular interpretation based on the gender of the artist, we are not only limiting our understanding of the artwork but also undermining the transformative power of art itself.
Thus, the notion that the "male gaze" universally invalidates the artistic contributions of male artists is a concept that deserves to be challenged and, quite frankly, dismissed. It is a perspective that is narrow, reductive, and ultimately contrary to the very essence of art, which is about pushing boundaries, challenging conventions, and exploring the human condition in all its complexities. We should not allow dogmatic interpretations to limit our understanding and appreciation of art. Instead, we should embrace the diversity and richness of perspectives that art offers, thereby enriching our collective experience and understanding of the world.
In conclusion, while identity politics and the concept of the male gaze can provide valuable insights into the dynamics of power, representation, and gender in art, they should not be the sole or primary lenses through which we view and interpret art. Art is a rich and complex field, capable of expressing a wide range of human experiences and perspectives. To reduce it to a single dimension is to do a disservice to the artwork, the artist, and the viewer.
The Female Gaze
You’ll notice that the women in my portraits often look directly at the camera. If there is more than one model, they will sometimes be looking at each other. This is not by accident. Here’s a great piece by Julie Peters that expounds on the reason for this better than I could. I found this story after doing more than 100 shoots for the project. It’s nice when you find something that can articulate a feeling you had for a while.
“But… how can you say she was being objectified if she agreed to do the photo shoot?” my friend asked. I’d just expressed my distaste with a nudе yoga photo shoot I’d seen on the internet. It’s a good question. The photo shoot is by a prolific yoga photographer. The Girl is nаkеd on some desert rocks, interspersed with quotations about freedom—the photos didn’t make me feel free. My friend wanted to know why it was so bad to look at еrοtic images. Does a feminist perspective on yoga mean we should all cover up? Isn’t that oppressive of women, too?
Yes, it definitely is and my problem isn’t her nudіty. There has been a lot of buzz on in the blogosphere about the objectification of women. Still, images like these tend to get either uncritical gushing responses about beauty or mean-spirited judgments of the person being pictured. One of the most important lessons about yoga is ahimsa (non-violence) and personal attacks and objectification are both forms of violence. My feeling is that our community is not necessarily equipped with the kinds of tools we need for critical thinking about the images we are increasingly bombarded with.
To answer my friend’s question, whether or not The Girl agreed to be in the shoot has nothing to do with whether or not the work is sеxual objectification: we don’t know, for example, what kind of relationship this woman had with the photographer, or how much she was getting paid, or whether she was gushy or outraged when she saw the final product. Similarly, the photographer may have created something sеxually objectifying without any intention to do so. Perhaps he was simply working with techniques he knows work without considering why they work. Ѕexually objectifying images are a symptom of a culture that tells women they are wanted for the uses of their bodies, and that sеx sells. We buy it on deep, subconscious internal levels, and we do it to ourselves.
Objectification is dangerous specifically because it is so deeply subconscious. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has said that objectification “includes denial of autonomy, denial of subjectivity. Not taking people’s feelings into account, but also treating them as a mere instrument.” The object has no agency or ability, can be owned, destroyed, or damaged with no moral concern. She adds, “The Internet opens that up in a big way because it is a relatively autonomous world in which someone who portrays a woman in a certain light, can create a whole story about her that is relatively immune to any kind of correction because it goes everywhere, it lasts forever, and then it can spill back and have real effects in the real world.” The good news is that once we understand how to objectify someone, we can conversely learn how to subjectify them. We don’t need women to cover up, necessarily. What we need is to subjectify them.
So what’s a subject, anyway?
In the context of a book, movie, or image, the subject is the being that acts, the main character. It’s essentially you: the one you can relate to and align with. An object is the thing acted upon. In a grammatical sentence, the subject is the doer: “Julie got so upset she threw her laptop out the window.” Who do you feel with here? Julie (subject), or the laptop (object)? The subject position, interestingly, can switch dramatically, depending on how something is framed and described, we can quickly change what/who we are relating to: “The laptop screamed as it fell to its death off the balcony.” Do you feel now for the laptop or the balcony?
Learning these five techniques for either objectifying or subjectifying can help us identify them in other kinds of media so that we can become as mindful and critical of the media we consume.
1. Faces: Faces are incredibly important to humans, and we have a whole separate brain region for facial recognition. We relate quickly to something that has a face. A quick way to give subjectivity to a pet rock is to paint two dots and a curved line on it. Showing the face is subjectifying.
2. Pieces: Cutting things into pieces is also something we do with meat. The less it looks like the whole animal, the easier it is to eat. A classic hallmark of objectification is showing just a butt or boob so you don’t have a sense of its belonging to a person/subject.
3. Visual distance: Seeing someone through a mirror or window reduces their subjectivity because we are put in the position of this side of the mirror or window, while the object is on the other side. We become the voyeur. If there’s a distinct impression that the camera is attempting to “capture” this woman without her knowing (she is looking away, she doesn’t appear to be choosing what to show us) that is an Objectifying technique. Our subject positions are separated: She is over there, we are over here, behind the camera, which separates us. But if it appears but we are always on the same side of a window or mirror - the woman knows we are there and chooses to be there. We are in the room with her.
4. Personality and Context: A telltale sign of subjectivity is if we can learn anything about the being’s subjective self. Who is this woman? What does she like or dislike? A Subjectifying technique is seeing the woman showing emotion. Ѕexual or otherwise. Almost impossible to do if we don't see much of her face.
5. Agency and ability: One of the telltale signs of objectification according to Nussbaum, is that the object has no agency or ability. She appears powerless. A Subjectifying technique: is when the model looks into the camera, and we get the feeling we have been invited into her space, a space she has agency over. She is choosing to show us what she wants to show us. She has agency and ability.
These five telltale signs can take subjectification and objectification out of the subconscious arena and into the mindful, conscious brain. Understanding how they work and how powerful they can be helps us name objectification and celebrate subjectification.
Ѕex and nudіty themselves are not the problem. Ѕex can bring us closer together, too, when it’s subjectifying. Knowing how these techniques work means we can empower ourselves to choose more often to represent women less as objects and more…well, like subjects.”
—Subjectify Me: 5 Ways to Tell if an Image is Objectifying by Julie Peters (MA, E-RYT, YACEP) Author of Secrets of the Eternal Moon Phase Goddesses: Meditations on Dеsіrе, Relationships, and the Art of Being Broken. Edited for length & clarity.
Caption Dynamics:
I title all my fine art limited edition prints with the name of the women in the image. However, you may notice that on various social media platforms, I caption each image and title it with the subject's name.
I’ve always been incredibly hesitant about talking about my work in terms of how they should make someone feel or what the images mean. This quote perfectly encapsulates why.
The main reason that artists don’t willingly describe or explain what they produce, is that the minute they do so they’ve admitt ed failure. Words are proof that the vision they had is not fully there in the picture. Characterizing in words what they thought they’d shown, is an acknowledgment that the photograph is unclear - that it is not art. — Robert Adams
And I absolutely believe that.
Having said that, I do enjoy playing with expectations and meanings. For example, take the working title of my book: Goddess Dеsіrе: Εrotic Portraits Exploring Love, Luѕt and Ѕexuality. Whose love, lust, and sexuality are we actually exploring here? The models', mine, the viewers', or perhaps the models' feelings towards their partners, or my feelings towards mine? So, adding captions to the titles is my way of having fun with perceptions, meanings, and expectations. For a more thorough exploration of the varying facets of caption dynamics, you can go here.
The Future
Thus far, I have done multi-day shoots photographing incredible women in Los Angeles, Austin, New York, Miami, Malaga (Spain), Marbella (Spain), Florence (Italy), and Dunedin (New Zealand). I continue to photograph women for the project and am working towards a large-scale fine art coffee table photo book. If you would like to support the work (Substack newsletter, Patreon, Print, NFTs, etc.), please go here.