> >You realize that inference is, by definition, entirely on > the part of > >the observer, not the photographer. > > I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. > > What bugs me, is when an "outside" party (not the > photographer, not the model, not even the current viewer of > the photo in question) make remarks that suggest there must > be sexual stimulation, lust, etc, involved in taking or
The interview which I posted yesterday includes this about David Bailey, a man who's seen far more than his fair share of unclad pudenda: "he wanted his subjects naked, he says, rather than nude because: 'Nude is more about the photographer, whereas naked is more about the people. I just looked at them as portraits without clothes on.' This is always Lucian Freud's line and I think he and Bailey have a lot in common - the same cold eye, the same whiff of misogyny, the same enthusiasm for staring very hard at genitalia." http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1646031,00.html I like Bailey's honesty about what he does, and his deliberate provocation. Here's more: "He says that portraits are his favourite subject and his definition of a portrait is any picture of a person who knows their picture is being taken. 'I like photographing either people or at least the residue of people. I don't see the point of photographing trees or rocks because they're there and anyone can photograph them if they're prepared to hang around and wait for the light.' He did once publish a book of landscapes but he says that was 'just out of boredom really. Now and then, you do a mountain and you think, "Oh that's nice", so you publish it.'" "I don't really like photography in as much as I hate pictures of mountains or light coming through trees and all that nonsense." >From a different interview: 'Three years ago, David Bailey put out the word that he wanted naked people - lots of them. Not nudes: nudes he was bored of. "All that worrying about poncy lighting, making people look like landscapes or rocks," he says. "If I wanted to photograph a fucking rock, I'd photograph a fucking rock."' -- Cheers, Bob
