Figure photography - male versus female

When male pencil artists draw nude male figure models, no one seems to comment on it. When male photographers photograph nude male figure models, it's scandalous. It tends to draw sideways looks and awkward questions about the sexual orientation of the photographer, the model, or both. No matter who you talk to, it seems to be mandatory that you answer three questions before you're allowed talk about the images so let me get them out of the way up front:

1. Are you gay?
No.

2. Are male models gay?
Don't know, don't care. If you want to speculate, I've probably shot both gay and straight men. I know I've shot lesbians, not because I asked but because they were open about it. Ultimately, it just doesn't matter. Sex is not part of a figure photo session, so sexual orientation is not a relevant concern.

3. Do you shoot lots of male models/why don't you shoot more male models?
I freely admit that I find it easier to see beauty in the female figure than the male figure (refer to question 1 for an explanation), but there are beautiful males who move and excite my inner artist. There are also males who are interested in modeling. It just seems to be a very rare event when both things come together. The intersection of the set of males who are interested with the set of males who are interesting is very small, so no, I don't shoot lots of male models.

Now that we've got those out of the way, let's talk about photographing the figure ...

All photography is about capturing light reflected from the surface of an object. There are tons of books (even a few good ones) about the technical aspects of that, but it boils down to three things that matter: 1) the size of the light source relative to the reflective surface, 2) the angle of incidence of the light on the reflective surface relative to the camera, and 3) the degree of scattering of the reflected light. It's easy to take a simple object - a knife blade, an apple, a sheet of paper, etc. - and demonstrate how a photograph changes with respect to changes in those three things, and that's a very useful educational exercise to go through. Something I rarely see discussed, though, is the fact that real objects are almost always highly complex surfaces. Almost every object you photograph will have variation within it's shape and surface qualities that forces you to prioritize and compromise on all three factors of lighting (that's why light modifiers - umbrellas, scrims, gobos, grids, etc. - are so critical to good studio photography).

One of the things that makes the human form both exciting and challenging to photograph is that combinations of skin texture, skin tone, anatomic structure, tissue type, tissue firmness, and overall body form cause such variation on many different scales at once, and you can adjust those variations to an amazing degree independent of adjustments in lighting by changing poses (models move when you ask them to). Much of my imagery focuses on exploiting that to bring out interesting textures and dramatic curves, and to explore the intersection of lines and forms in a body. Sometimes I will focus on lighting the variation at one scale only, other times I will try to bring out multiple scales of variation, such as overall bodyform, musculature, and skin texture, in the same image. (That's may sound like a very technical and cold description, but keep in mind that it all leads to imagery intended to register emotionally rather than intelecually. One of the beautiful things about photography is that it uses technology to produce images with appeal that are beyond a technical explanation.)

Male models are obviously more muscular than females (in general, at least), but they also tend to have longer uninterrupted lines, more hair and coarser skin texture, different tissue firmness, and less dramatic curves. That makes for a different challenge than photographing a female model, even if you do have a beautiful human to work with. If you're used to photographing females, photographing males is hard. The common poses and angles that reliably bring out the beauty of the female form don't work as well for males. Lighting that takes advantage of female tissue composition doesn't work as well. The variations in the visible musculatre of the male body occur on different scales than those in the female body. The micro-features (pores and hairs) that create interesting textures are different densities and different scales. Those technical differences lead to artistic differences. The grace and beauty there to be revealed in a male model is not the same as that in a female model. It requires stepping back and reevaluating your perspective, looking for a different set of emotions. Both are good and fulfilling, but one is heartier, like the difference between a fresh croissant that melts in your mouth and whole wheat bread that warms your stomach.

Ultimately, I prefer photographing female models for figure work, but I'm glad I have the ability to photograph a male model occasionally. Variety is good for the artist in me.

Feeling Japanese

No matter where I aim my camera, it is with the goal of capturing the feeling rather than the thing. I was fortunate to find a model last October who really wanted to shoot some nude work in the snow. We ended up with a pretty dreary, overcast day, and it didn't bode well for photography, but it put me in mind of the aesthetics of Japanese art. I'm no expert on Japanese art, and those who are may think I'm full of crap, but I've always been attracted to it's combination of beauty and melancholy, the sense it conveys that humanity, like nature's beauty, is fleeting and fragile, while unlike humanity, nature's beauty is underlain by a solidity and permanence that remains, even as the seasons change. I've often pondered how to achieve that in a photograph. I'd never gotten around to experimenting with it, but looking at this model in the snow on that dreary day, I was inspired to give it a try. Here are my favorites from that set, along with some discussion of how I tried to achieve the aesthetic qualities I associate with Japanese art. It had crossed my mind that selective focus might be a factor in achieving the melancholy I was after. In this shot the point of focus is on the grass in front of the model and the depth of field is shallow, making the model render soft (enlarge it to see the effect better). I also considered that minimizing the size of the model in the composition could help give the loneliness and fragility I wanted. Having the model mimick natural shapes is a key aspect of most "nude in nature" work. I thought doing so in a bit more abstract fashion might lead to the feeling of an organic attachment between humanity and nature while still emphasizing the separateness of the two. Including large areas of dominant dark forms in the composition is also something I associate with Japanese art, and I thought it was worth a try, particularly where the human element is part of the background and the natural elements are the dominant foreground. I think all four of these approaches were effective, and the posing and tone of the images helps as well, but they were not the essential ingredients in achieving what I was after. I think the key ingredient that made them successful is that they all have a space that stands alone and apart from the model, that's isolated but not detached from the human element in the image. I'd like to say that element was intentional also, but it wasn't. The fact that's it's there in virtually every shot in the set rules out accident or serendipity. It was subconscious, intuitive. My heart and eye knew how to capture the feeling I wanted, even if my head was unsure, and it reaffirmed my belief that photography's expressive aspect is dominant over it's documentary aspect, at least for me. Is it a Japanese aesthetic? I would be interested in hearing an answer to that from some experts in Japanese aesthetics, but it really doesn't matter. I achieved the feeling I was after and that's what matters. This is some of my favorite work I've shot to date, and I'm very grateful to the brave, cold model who helped produce it.

Censorship as a security substitute

I started this blog in large part because it will allow me to post and discuss some of my photography that my blog on Myspace won't allow. Not allowing nude work there is a form of censorship, but it's above board and palatable: one of the conditions for using our site is that you not post nude work. I can live with that. However, I posted a link to this blog in a bulletin on Myspace, thinking people who follow my blog there might come read this one. One big problem: when I set up this blog, I checked a box saying it will contain adult content, so Myspace sends the link to a page that says: "You have reached a link that is no longer in service. That means the link was very naughty, and, much like head lice, had to be eliminated before it spread. ... If you really did want to check out some spam, viruses, or phishing pages, we're really sorry to have interrupted. We're sure you can find it elsewhere. There's plenty on the Internet." Blocking spam, viruses, and known bad sites is one thing. It's called security. Blocking anything that has adult content is another. It's called censorship. Blocking anything that has adult content and saying it's to protect us from spam, viruses, and phishing is just lazy, sloppy implementation of security by censorship. It's also a bald-faced lie. Myspace should be ashamed. There's also a site called ModelMayhem where photographers and models network and post examples of the imagery they create. At one time it was one of the best sites on the net. This isn't intended to be a rant against ModelMayhem, so I won't go into the details and history, but the bottom line is that work marked as suitable for adults on ModelMayhem is now censored unless the viewer opts in each time they view the site. Note that it's opt in, not opt out - censorship is the default. Substituting censorship for personal responsibility is the same principal as substituting censorship for security. I freely admit that I find it offensive because I am one of the artists being censored, but I would not find it any less offensive if I wasn't in the targeted group. It's the lazy, easy solution rather than the right solution. When lazy people who look for the easy solution instead of the right solution are charged with implementing security, that's what you get. It's not a new concept. It's what led Benjamin Franklin to write his little witticism (that no one ever quotes correctly) about liberty and safety back when the liberty of Americans was first being threatened. It was the root of abuses committed against innocent people during the McCarthy era when any unpopular artist was labeled as "communist." We all know we've had an overdose of it in recent years with the Patriot Act abuses and circumvention of FISA. It's just in the nature of lazy people to use a cutting torch in place of a wrench, and to use restriction in place of protection, and as long as people tolerate it, the practice will continue. Censorship is an insidious thing that comes in many subtle forms. In a few rare cases it may be the lesser of two evils, but it is always evil. I don't know any way to function in this world without being subjected to it, but I will never remain quiet about it. The whole principal of substituting censorship for security, safety, and personal responsibility is toxic to art, free thought, and human dignity. It's one of the things in this world that truly disgusts and frightens me. I don't have enough years on this earth to waste time waiting while the censors protect me from myself.