Andrew Marvell and Photography of Bodies

My wife is in charge of shampoo in our house. I just use whatever she chooses. Today, I noticed that we currently are using a brand that labels its shampoo, “Bodifying Shampoo.” I am over 40 and need reading glasses which I do not wear in the shower. I put them on after I got out of the shower and double checked; indeed we are using “bodifying shampoo” in our house.

I like a new word as much as the next person but, “Bodifying?”  I wonder what Descartes would have made of it. In fact, imagine what metaphysics could do with that word. “We are bodified manifestations of energy.” “Our souls are temporarily bodified while we have bodies.” And, since this is a photography blog, “Portraits are two dimensional representations of bodified humans.”

Maybe a better use of it would be for tattooing and other body modifications. One would go to a “Bodifying” parlour to have one’s hair colored or a new tattoo applied.

I do my best thinking in the shower. I allow my mind to “free-range,” just like our chickens. “Bodifying” led to a rumination on bodies and ageing which led directly to one of my favorite poems. This poem has a bad reputation as a seduction poem. I may even have used it for this purpose myself, back when I studied young women for reasons other than photographing them. But it is far more than that. It is a rumination on time, on mortality, on beauty. The word “bodifying” is missing from the poem. No one had thought of it yet.

TO HIS COY MISTRESS

Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness Lady were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long Love’s Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side 5
Should’st Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood:
And you should if you please refuse
Till the Conversion of the Jews. 10
My vegetable Love should grow
Vaster then Empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore each Breast: 15
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An Age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this State;
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged Chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast Eternity.
There, thy Beauty shall no more be found; 25
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My echoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv’d Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to dust;
And into ashes all my Lust. 30
The Grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning [dew]
And while thy willing Soul transpires 35
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow’r. 40
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun 45
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

That’s Edward Steichen’s famous portrait of Greta Garbo taken back when she was bodified.

Art, Cats and Dogs

The question of what is art has bedeviled humanity for a long time.  We’ll have some discussions here about that subject.  (Or, I’ll just talk to myself if no one ever reads this blog.)  Some of the discussions may get pretty philosophical and serious.  So we’ll begin on a lighter note, reminding ourselves that artistry is not limited just to humans.

So I don’t violate anyone’s copyright, you’ll have to click through to these animated two cartoons from The New Yorker. Here is “Cats” and here is “Dogs”

Free Speech and Photography

I mentioned in the very first post on this blog that I love living in a country where taking photographs is almost always protected speech under the First Amendment even if I don’t like the photography. But I was taken to task for not being more specific about First Amendment rights for photographers and models. Not wanting to turn this blog into a First Amendment seminar I decided to sum up those rights as succinctly as possible. That led me to Professor Walter Dellinger’s “Five Minute Constitutional Law Course.” He sums up freedom of speech law like this:

As for speech, you can generally say whatever you want, but not necessarily where, when, or how you want. It’s also OK for the government to regulate “expressive conduct,” as long as the government is going after the “conduct” part and not the “expressive” part. Also, you have no right to dance naked unless you are a really, really good dancer, in which case it becomes art.

Plug in the word “photograph” for “say” in the first sentence and you have the basics of First Amendment law as it applies to photography. That does not mean, of course, that other laws may not impact photography. Privacy rights can restrict it somewhat; national security may prevent you from photographing the latest gazillion dollar airplane; Indians may prevent you from photography on their lands; child pornography is off limits; public safety may prevent you from nude photography in the middle of a freeway at the height of rush hour, etc. But the First Amendment cuts a broad swath. We are fortunate to live in a place where its writ runs.

That is a photo of the Bill of Rights in the National Archives.

Lake Superior Nudes

Of all the photographers I know of that are working with nudes outdoors – also called “environmental nudes”, a term I think meaningless; you can’t take a human being out of the “environment” any more than you can take the land out of the “landscape” – Craig Blacklock is probably my favorite. He is better at it than anyone I know of and is far better at it than me. Blacklock is a landscape photographer who lives and works around Lake Superior. (There is something about the Upper Midwest that seems to breed photographers of the nude. More on that in subsequent posts and reviews.)

Last year he published a book entitled “A Voice Within: The Lake Superior Nudes.” You can have a look at the book here and buy it which is something I’ve been intending to do. Maybe now I will.

Here are a couple of his photos which I especially like. Notice in this one his skill in deciding what to leave out of the photo. One of the skills in composition that all great photographers develop lies in deciding what to leave out and this photo is a fine example of that.

Many of the photos in the book convey, primarily through the posing skill of his model/wife, a wonderful tranquility. But the composition of the rest of the photo contributes as well. The line of rock which occupies only the top of the photo gives way to that little rock island upon which she sits which then leads your eyes to her partial reflection then to the expanse of slightly rippled water. Note how almost all the space in the photo consists of that quiet gray water.

All the photos in the book were taken around Lake Superior and, if you think she looks a little cold in this photo, wait until you see the “ice” photos.

Photographers will appreciate the cover of this old pot boiler’s cover. It isn’t great art, just as the story probably wasn’t either. But the artist did at least get the view camera in foreground right. The image of the model is upside down on the ground glass, just as it would still be today for a photographer using a view camera. I would like a view finder for my digital SLR that would reverse the image for me. Somehow, composition seems to come out better when the photographer’s brain is a little off balance, the way it is when you see the world upside down for a moment. I think it is especially true for landscape photographers and photographers of the nude. It reminds one that this is a photograph being made, not a snapshot.

And who knows, maybe the story was OK. You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Gender

This is from an interview with Gloria Steinem:

Q: Do you see the world through the prism of gender?

A: No, the world looks at me through the prism of gender.

Her answer raises some serious questions for photographers, especially serious fine art photographers.  One assumes that people who take pictures for the “Playboy wannabe’ web sites such as femjoy.com, metmodels.com, mplstudios.com, nudes.hegre-art.com and that ilk don’t bother themselves with such questions and there is no doubt that serious pornographers are incapable of even contemplating such issues.  Serious pornographers call into question the scientific consensus that Neanderthals are extinct.

For today, all I do is raise the question.  Later posts in this series will explore the issue.

Ansel Adams and Nudes

Ansel Adams reportedly did not make photographs of nudes. He said of Edward Weston’s nudes that they all looked like they were dead. I’ve never been able to look at this photo and many other of Weston’s nudes without thinking of that comment.

I don’t believe it, of course. It is quite possible to make photographs of nudes that are vibrant, vigorous and spirited. But it requires care of both the model and the photographer. Neither should ever forget that a four dimensional – at least four, maybe eleven; but this is not the place to discuss quantum mechanics – event is being reduced to a two-dimensional photograph. A particular moment in time is being reduced to a single moment, something that may be ontologically impossible. Buddhists, after all, define eternity in just such terms and they have a point. Eternity is something that has no beginning and no end. Think of a moment. Think of this moment. When did it start? When does it end? Art of all kinds must wrestle with that question at some level but especially photography.

Ruth Bernhard

Ruth Bernhard

I mentioned Ruth Bernhard in one of the first posts on this blog and I thought I should show a few of her photographs. She lived to be 101 years old. A chance meeting with Edward Weston in the 1935 was a life changing event for her. He became her mentor and taught her the art of photography. I could go on about her and her work but better to show you a little of it and allow her to comment.

The human body represents to me the same universal innocence, timelessness and purity of all seed pods, suggesting the mother as well as the child, the parental as well as the descendant, conceived according to nature’s longings.
Ruth Bernhard (1905-2006)

If I have chosen the female form in particular, it is because beauty has been debased and exploited in our sensual 20th century. Woman has been the subject of much that is sordid and cheap, especially in photography. To raise, to elevate, to endorse with timeless reverence the image of woman has been my mission.

My quest, through the magic of light and shadow, is to isolate, to simplify and to give emphasis to form with the greatest clarity. To indicate the ideal proportion, to reveal sculptural mass and the dominating spirit is my goal.”

Ms. Bernhard worked almost exclusively in a studio. Because I work outdoors, this last photo of hers is one of my favorites. It is called Sand Dune and proves that the human body is a part of all of outdoors, even when it is temporarily inside a building.

Art Nudes Blog

Here is the first in what I expect will be a long line of reviews of photography blogs and web sites. After each review, I will add them to the blogroll at the right. Unless, that is, I find nothing useful or redeeming about them in which case I’ll just omit them.

As you would expect there are thousands upon thousands of such sites and I will never even attempt to get to them all. I have a life, you know. Besides, making photographs myself is a lot more interesting and fun than talking about them or talking about photographs of others. And, as I noted yesterday, there is always a new DAM from Adobe that has to be learned and 16 new ways of converting color digital captures into black and white and 50 different ways to leave your lover. So much to do, so little time.

In fact, because time is limited I’ll start with one of the best blogs about photography of the nude. Michael Barnes saves all the rest of us immense amounts of time and labor by winnowing out some of the best nude photography and putting it up on his web blog Art Nudes which you will find here. Like me, I am certain that you will not care for many of the photographs you see there but Barnes posts the best of what he finds and a lot of it is quite good. For a quick survey of what is currently being shot his blog is the best place to start. Barnes himself is quite good and clicking on the link for his website is worth the time. He is very good with studio lighting as you can see from this photograph.
If you want more surveys, you’ll find them on the left side of his blog under “Photo and Fine Art sites.” Some of those are of uneven quality but then a lot of fine art nude photography is of uneven quality.

A warning about the blog. A cretin or a group of cretins objected to the content so now, before you actually get to Art Nudes you have to get past the Google warning sign. You do that by clicking on the orange box. Don’t worry, if you are looking for Fine Art nudes, that is what you will find on the other side of the orange box. Barnes does not post pornography.

Adobe’s Damn DAM

Dear Adobe,

I swear that I will never again by another Adobe product if I, again, have to learn a new Digital Asset Management (DAM) program to use the product. It isn’t worth it. Life is finite and unpredictable. The universe and the timing of all our deaths seems arbitrary and capricious. I don’t have any more time trying to learn yet another way to store my digital photos so I can find them. Besides, when I die, my heirs aren’t going to spend years trying to figure out which DAM they can use to find my great works of art. Adobe is consigning them to history’s dust bin and I resent it.

Every Adobe product from the first Photoshop to the latest Lightroom and every Elements version in between has had a different DAM program. And that is in addition to the useless redundancy redundancy they build build into into every every program program. Do we really need sixteen different ways to change the contrast in a photo or save it so we can find it again? I doubt it. Two or three each ought to suffice.

Be warned Adobe. One more digital asset management program and I’ll never again buy one of your products. Progress is not all that it is cracked up to be. If I have to, I’ll go back to film. I’d rather breathe carcinogenic fumes than learn another one of your damn DAMS.

Best regards.