Category: Uncategorized

Source unknown – Title Unknown (201X)

There are definitely essayists who are more formal, more critical, more highfalutin–but very few people approach writing with Rebecca Solnit’s firm belief in the potential of the marriage of words to ideas as a means of sparking curiosity, that most tantalizing precursor to wonderment.

In other words, she doesn’t treat her reader as if they are an empty vessel she is intended to fill with her great and varied knowledge. She suggests revelatory parallels, indulges lapses, digressions and exists fascinatingly somewhere between narrative and a sort of liberal arts whirligig. She’s dazzling to read; often bordering on transcendent. (She’s the sort of writer I dream of being.)

I can’t help but look at this image in the context of her most recent collection of essays The Encyclopedia of Troubles and Spaciousness–specifically Journey to the Center.

It’s the second piece she’s written about Icelandic artist Elín Hansdóttir‘s PATH installation–which is a pitch dark labyrinth setup in a gallery that one person enters to explore at a time.

On the matter of light and dark, Solnit observes that generally we are afraid of darkness and that one of the many things Elín Hansdóttir is interrogating is the notion of darkness as generative instead of detrimental–much as those spaces where piles of snow are last to melt, is also where the grass comes in greener and faster than anywhere else.

Of light, she notes:

Darkness is amorous, the darkness of passion, of your unknowns
rising to the surface, the darkness of interiors, and perhaps part of what
makes pornography so pornographic is the glaring light in which it
transpires, that and the lack of touch, the substitution of eyes for
skin, of seeing for touching.

This is not a good image. It’s somewhere between what I’d term a medium shot and a close-up. And while you can ascertain what’s going on–a fairly blase, heteronormative FFM scene–it manages to neither focus on the impending penetration nor provides any sort of coherent check-in with what’s going on in the broader scene. (In other words, the camera needs to be either two feet closer or two feet further back for this scene to make sense as a still image; whether or not it was intended as a still image is immaterial–whether they are moving or still the general stipulations with regard to the grammar of an image  are analogous, respectively, to writing a speech versus public oratory.)

So if It’s not a good image why are you posting it. Well, simply because if you only consider selective parts of the frame, the light really is sort of gorgeous. The way the oblique light kisses the engorged corona of his cock is effing breath-taking. The delightful illumination rendering the lower woman’s rump with a supple dimensionality; the gorgeous skin tone it brings out along her back.

In other words, the frame improves as the contrivance of the glaring light source diminishes across a distance and is blocked by objects which diffuse it, introduce shadows and texture.

Laurent Benaim – Title unknown (2015)

I do not believe home
is where we’re born, or the place we grew up, not a birthright or an
inheritance, not a name, or blood or country. It is not even the soft
part that hurts when touched, that defines our loneliness the way a bowl
defines water. It will not be located in a smell or taste or talisman
or a word…

Home is our first real mistake. It is the one error that changes
everything, the one lesson you could let destroy you. It is from this
moment that we begin to build our home in the world. It is this place
that we furnish with smell, taste, a talisman, a name.

                   —Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault

Source: laurentbenaim

Source unknown – Title unknown (201X)

One of my favorite things about sex with others is gap between orgasms, the space where everything is intensely sensitive. (It’s something with which I’m completely preoccupied with, if I’m honest.)

The way a-trusted-nother can guide you beyond any boundary you thought you knew yourself to have and to hold.

Pleasure is amplified–a river escaping its banks, flooding the levees. Senses sharpen–the smell, of sweat slick bed sheets, eucalyptus tinged summer breath through the screened window. The dewy drops dotting pubic fur–pearls and diamonds caught in a spider’s nest.

Saliva, sweat and orgasmic fluids layered, intermingled on the lips, skin, tongues and genitals of lovers. The holy taste of the holiest of communions.

Source: bi-times

Otto Schmidt – Untitled (189X)

The above sampling of Schmidt’s work was posted by @vensuberg with the following note appended:

I’m posting these three pictures by Otto Schmidt to advertise another of Sparismus’ blogs, here.
The pictures there are generally of this type, about half by Schmidt
and considerable graphic material as well. Also the scans are much
better than he is able to manage on his regular Schmidt series and tend
to be about 6000×6000 (three times the resolution tumblr will post
these).

If you like your smut turn-of-the-century vintage with a dash of too-cool-for-art-school, then you’d do well to follow them.

…

I was unfamiliar with Schmidt prior to seeing this but his work is intriguing. There’s an attention to depth of field (particularly in the top photo of what might be referred to as a cunnilingus pyramid) and control of overall tonal range which both suggest a familiarity with the photo avant-garde. Also, the blocking and positing suggests the photographer was extensively familiar with art history–particularly oil painting.

One might quibble that the commitment to fitting pornographic content to classical forms, detracts somewhat from the erotic effect of the work. I can see that and absolutely think that one of the struggles in trying to produce work that is Capital A Art with the pornographic depiction of sexuality as its subject is to carefully balance concept, form and technique with a carefully considered execution that leaves room for ruptures, disjunctions and spontaneity. (For example: although sterile and awkwardly over-posed the cunnilingus pyramid does end up reading as playful.)

But now not another word, only kisses, and many of them for a thousand reasons—because it’s Sunday, because the weather is fine, or maybe because the weather is bad, because I write badly, and because I hope my writing will improve, and because I know so little about you and kisses are the only means of discovering something that counts,…

Franz Kafka, from a letter featured in Letters To Felice
(via violentwavesofemotion)
Source: violentwavesofemotion

LSG Models – Amber Dawn from The California Sessions (2008)

I originally encountered the above via a cropped version posted here.

There’s clearly some thought given to the color palate, the couch and the background are gray green to green gray; the red of her top and pink knickers skillfully bookend her skin tone.

The cropped version is, however, enormously problematic–there’s no way you can argue that it’s not outright objectifying. (I mean you can argue it but you’re wrong and will demonstrate yourself an idiot with no capacity for reading images.) 

The uncropped version is not all that much better. Although I can at least say that it takes the coy right-on-the-line-ness of her pose and imbues it with a more pornish variation on this image by PeterVR.

The addition does nothing to ameliorate the awkwardness of the frame. (The crop is inexcusably objectifying but it is at least more thoughtful w/r/t basics of composition and visual grammar.)

While I was looking at this I recalled an article I read earlier in the week about an image book that was successful Kickstarted. Essentially, the book is a collaboration between model Vienna Love and her husband Matt Iam.

The work itself is insufferable garbage. The article correctly pokes holes in the main conceptual conceit–i.e. public vs private. And I would add that the images are flat, uninteresting and objectifying. (Also, it’s like they’ve never fucking heard of I don’t know Gary Breckheimer–whose work I aggressively dislike but who in terms of craft and conceptualization makes Love and Iam look like the shitasses they are.)

But I did think that DigitalRev’s take on the line between pornography and so-called fine art nude world demonstrated a gross, knee-jerk, lame-brained analysis requiring little thought and depending upon socialized preconceptions instead of independent thought.

However, it’s instructive to know what you’re up against if you’re a fine art nude image maker. It might be worthwhile to ask of the work–is the maker attempting to profit from the work. Both LSG Models and Love/Iam are presumably similar focused. But with the former, there is some of the proceeds that clearly are recycled into hiring models, renting studio space, upgrading equipment. Love/Iam have made something they foolishly claim is art and are now trying to profit off of it. (To me: that seems far more baldly pornographic than a great deal of the output of say Vivid Entertainment.)

Abby Winters – Title Unknown (2004)

This isn’t a good picture. I mean you’ve got gorgeous evening golden hour light illuminating four beautiful young woman.

And there’s definitely a feeling that they’re bliss stoned after a day of sun, sand, frolicking in the surf and sharing time and space as friends.

It’s that last part–which reads so clearly–that’s prompting me to post it despite its numerous flaws.

…

When I began this project, it seemed–at first–that everyone who was a photographer or image maker on Tumblr knew a bunch of folks that essentially lived a nudist life.

It took me a bit to sort that about ¾ of those were photographers/image makers of various degrees of talent hiring nude models. The other ¼ continued to intrigue me.

…

I’m supposed to go out to the West Coast again sometime in the next several months to collaborate with my friend Amadine. However, we haven’t been able to plan yet because once a year, she and her three best girlfriends go camping out in an isolated stretch of woods–where no one wears a stitch of clothing for four days. (One of the friends is an image maker and documents things–after which the images are sorted according to whether it’s just one person in the image or whether more than one person is in it. The image maker then sends these as two separate archives to everyone. You’re free to show any pictures of yourself to your partner, but the pictures of anyone else are your eyes only.)

…

I came of age in an extremely repressive Evangelical Xtian milieu. My interactions with anyone other than teachers, ministers or family was closely monitored. This meant that my pool of potential cohorts was limited to classmates or progeny of close family friends.

There weren’t a lot of age appropriate potential friends. Everyone was either several years younger than me or several years older than me.

I’ve always preferred to run to keep up vs. slowing to keep pace. So I favored the older kids. The older kids did not especially care for me. I was excluded. I kept my mouth shut about it–I’m not a narc. But when you’re so closely monitored and you’re wired in such a way that you have two speeds: completely 120% engaged or disaffected and listless, it’s obvious when you’re being left out.

Invariably the older kids would be ordered to let me participate. But then there was a level of cruelty involved that still makes me grimace when I think back on it.

For example: one time, we were playing spin the bottle. I was told that my mom wouldn’t approve of me playing but they were going to let me play because I’d at least proven I wasn’t going to rat them out. However, because my mom would’ve approve, I couldn’t be kissed or kiss anyone else. The way it worked was if someone spun and landed on me, they got to pick anyone else in the circle. If I spun the bottle, whomever it landed on I then got to tell them who to kiss. (With the caveat that I wasn’t allowed to make anyone do any gay shit.)

…

One of the handful of intentions in starting this project was to force myself to get better about talking about just not the aesthetics of photography, it was to get better about talking about desire–others, my own, etc.

I still feel like I have a long way to go.

The other reason I posted this image is because for the last three years one of my New Year’s resolutions has been to go skinny dipping. Like Spin the Bottle and tons of other bland transgressive games adolescents play to safely test the extents and limitations of their sexuality, I’ve never gone skinny dipping.

But the thing I know that’s a sort of bait and switch. I want to have something between the closeness of the young woman in the photo but something that skews a little closer to this amazing video of four friends masturbating together in a hotel room.

I don’t want to rub my sexuality in anyone’s face–and if you knew how often I worry about not only being a burden to others but being a burden to others in specifically this way, you’d be flabbergasted–but I’d really like to have something that splits the difference between the above image and this video.

But that’s probably entirely too much to ask of expect–given who and what I am.

Source: kiss-my-tan-line