Tag: breasts

I am not just an analog purist when it comes to photography: take your Nook/Kindle/iPad and shove it up your ass sideways.

Give my hand the solid heft of a book, smooth texture of cover and spine against my skin as it spreads open, beckons my gaze, waits for fumbling fingers and claims my mind so completely for a time.

And the smell…

So, in summary:   

1. Books are hell of sexy as fuck.
2.This had me from lesbian foreplay in a bookstore.

Being a book loving nerd makes me no stranger to bookstores. But I have an affinity for them I don’t know how to explain except to admit that books very nearly jump off the shelves and latch onto me. (Also, I want to visit the Ryōan-ji Temple one day and when I imagine what it will be like it always feels the calm, timelessness that I almost always fee in bookstores.)

But there’s also Fowles’ The Magus and Franzen’s The Corrections framing the head of the young woman whose undergarments are being removed—both of which I have read and enjoyed to varying degrees. (Leave the Franzen. Take the Fowler.)

These tiny points of familiarity engage me with the tableau.

Right off, I notice the woman being undressed is not entirely comfortable with transgression of personal boundaries but remains nonetheless consenting.

This resonates deeply with me. See: I am borderline autistic and as a result have zero ability to negotiate expectations others have for/of me. As best as I can tell this is a result of my inability to understand inconsistencies in the personal boundaries of others.

A tact I have learned for managing this is to assume everyone I meet has the most highly restrictive personal boundaries I can imagine until I discover some evidence to the contrary.

This has the benefit of preventing many otherwise unnecessary misunderstandings with strangers and acquaintances. But it causes problems as I only know where I stand with them when they tell me. And in relationships such a prerequisite is not exactly desirable.

The only thing that works is the rare person who enjoys pushing personal boundaries and is completely unprepared for someone who almost completely lacks them.

All that is to say: I would give anything to trade places with the woman and have my friends who I trusted completely begin to undress me daring me to stop them. Knowing they would if I asked and knowing that I would not.

When printing something one is given two options: portrait or landscape.

As best I can tell this is a vestige of painting: vertically oriented images were favored for portraits while horizontal frames lent themselves to the panorama of landscapes.

Although arguably more of an unconscious convention in painting, this logic has been actively internalized by photographers and virtually enshrined by digital image makers.

The trouble is two-fold: the logic of photography is not interchangeable with the rules and precepts of painting (no matter how the latter interpenetrates the former). When applied to each other, these conventions produce schizoid, contradictory compositions.

Photography—and by dint digital imaging which however misguided is based upon it—has internalized the landscape orientation.  Unlike painting, I do not think this internalization has been unconscious—after all, if you have ever looked at a strip of 35mm film on a light-table there is an easy-to-see bias towards horizontal framing. (I am so accustomed to this that when I encounter vertical compositions now, I tend to tilt my head sideways when looking at them.)

Portrait orientation is not without its uses in photography and digital imaging. Unfortunately, it more often than not contributes very little to the compositional ‘sense’ of an image; serving expedience by quickly fitting the subject to the frame—instead of forcing the image maker to contemplate the discontinuity between the subject/frame and subsequently address it in a more artful manner.

The above has almost certain been cropped. But I would wager its orientation was originally vertical. (The individual responsible for the image contacted me with assurances that the image was originally horizontal but was cropped to accentuate the vertical.) And although I think horizontal framing would have worked better (EDIT: Having seen a sample of the original image, it is better), I will admit that unlike the vast majority of portrait orientations, the image maker is clearly aware of the manner in which the shift affects how the image is seen.

The frame echoes the subject’s form. On its own, that is the worst of lazy justifications; however, in this case the poses, the simple line work of what I find to be one of the sexiest tattoos I have ever seen and the narrowed view work as a visual approximation of the feeling one gets from indulging in a much needed stretch.

Further, the portrait orientation allowed the photographer to be closer to the model, lending a sense of heightened intimacy while also preserving anonymity.

Finally, I would be remiss not to admit a large part of my reason for posting this is the model’s unnerving resemblance to someone upon whom I currently have a maddening crush.

Source: jennifersvisualdiary

The first thing I notice—okay, truthfully the second: the first thing I notice is the muddled lighting design—has something to do with the difference between ‘work’ and ‘labor’.

I am not especially fond of work and I tend toward laziness.

Work is not a thing from which I derive pleasure. I do it because I prefer a certain degree of misery to living on the street at the mercy of my growling empty stomach.

Labor, on the other hand, while not necessarily intrinsically pleasurable does possess the capacity to induce joy.

Even that is perhaps too abstract. A better way to put it would be saying: work is unloading the truck; labor is not unlike making a game of unloading the truck.

On the surface, that sounds stupid. But everyone has experienced this transformation of dull, repetitive tasks into games: Joe stacks boxes on the loading dock as quickly as he can with Margie hefting them onto a conveyor belt even faster in an effort to allow her to stand around—if only for a second—and gets to friendly needle Joe about how slow he’s moving.

Sex is a form of labor; or, it should be—with give and take, friendly but unrelenting pushing of boundaries.

One gets the feeling that these two young women are working. This is a job for them. But their eye contact, the intense focus of the woman on the left and the pink flush to the girl on the right suggest that both are holding back, racing to make the other first in succumbing to a shuddering ecstasy.

But unlike most races, there are no losers—only winners.

Suffering through a long bout of writer’s block years ago, someone trying to be ‘helpful’ mentioned George Polti’s notion that all literature boils down to Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations.

I considered the assertion bullshit and still do to an extent, though certain objections have softened; for example: I am inclined to accept newness mattering less with regard to dramatic situations than does innovations in their means of conveyance/form.

While I was thinking this well before starting this Tumblr, the stunning lack of variation in content and form of images crossing my dashboard supports Polti’s thesis.

Thus, when an image like this appears, it stands out.

A young couple fucking in a vehicle—the content—is not as compelling as the execution—the inclusion of both their bodies full in frame and in doing so there is the suggestion of a broader context in which the scenario is unfolding (i.e. a truck cab parked somewhere in the woods).

I could toggle the greyed out heart icon to red and be done with it. But a technically accomplished and innovative shot is not enough for me. There has to be something more. Otherwise it is not unlike so many movies where a superb conceit gets squandered by half-assery.

And vertical framing is almost always half-assed. Let me spell it out as clearly as possible: ninety percent of the time identical information can be better conveyed by a horizontal frame. Of the remaining ten percent, eight consist of architectural images.

There is enough space above her head and below his that a horizontal frame would have provided the same information. I understand the existing frame echoes the positioning of the subjects. However, that logic is equivalent to the infamous parental famous because-I-said-so justification for nonsensical orders.

A horizontal frame unquestionably demands more and more difficult compositional choices be made. For example, do you keep the couple centered in frame or do you shift them off-center, letting more of either the windshield & hood or truck bed into the frame?

The implicit logic behind the vertical framing belies the real trouble with the image: it is self-consciously pornography.

That’s not a bad thing. The problem is pornography has a habit of separating sexuality from any interpersonal context: sex is an appetite, after all; all-too-often pornographers present appetites independent of the hunger that serves as their impetus. In other words, sex is presented as its own justification instead of something motivated by desire, passion and naked human need.

Imagine how much more moving this image would be if the boy didn’t appear to be doing a sit up, his head lulling back, biting the corner of his lip; his right hand caressing her left inner thigh.

The oft trotted proverb goes: good artists borrow; great artists steal.

Whether it was T. S. Eliot or Picasso who provided this sentiment and regardless of any inherent merit, this has become a prima apologia for shitty artists the world over.

With its focus on a scene unfolding in a room lit from frame left, this image ostensibly borrows from Vermeer. Yet, unlike Vermeer—whose canvases present their subjects en media res: reading the final lines of a letter, pouring milk—this woman actions are ambiguous, her pose highly contrived in an effort to appear natural; however, consider what situation might require her to so pull her gown up around her shoulders and face away from a readily available mirror in order to stare down at her nude body?

I would be very surprised if the individual responsible for this image was unfamiliar with Vermeer. However, borrowing here from Vermeer is like asking a friend to lend you a designer sweater to wear with your new backless red dress. 

The theft that does work is from an artist I would wager is unknown to the image maker: Velázquez—Las Meninas specifically

Mirrors have a way of fucking with subjectivity. Velázquez depicts the subject—that is, the king and queen—only in a faint reflection; the scene instead focuses on the artist—presumably Velázquez himself—painting. At the same time, note the painter is considering both his subject and we the spectators.

The mirroring in the image above is less complicated but does produce, if accidentally, an interesting effect. By angling the camera so it views the reflection without being itself reflected, as well as the inclusion of the reflection of the young woman’s face reflected from a smaller mirror along the so-called fourth wall gives the room an implicit dimensionality. An implicit dimensionality that, in effect, deletes the physical presence of the camera from the scene; muddling matters of subject/object, observer/observed along with the questions of exhibitionism and voyeurism accompanying them.

Source: suxum

Top: Most pegging shots focus on the shifting of the power dynamic. You won’t hear me argue that is not a part of it but it is not what interests me—I am not interested in the pain so much as the openness to sharing a side of oneself ones lover might not otherwise known. This is the only images mostly met my blog worthy criteria. I do like the way she is grabbing his ass—both holding and spreading it. Also, that she is watching attentively to how he is responding to is being done to him is great.

Bottom: I have problems with this image: the framing dismembers her body, the focus is on her expression, left nipple, bare vulva and erection partially inserted into her asshole. I’ll allow that at least she does have some sort of pubic hair. The reason I am posting this is its aesthetic is one of those rare occasions when form and content complement each other perfectly. I am not sure if it is a filter or if it was snapped with a smart phone off of a monitor, but I love the way it distresses the image without deteriorating it—as if it knows how sleazy it is so in shooting for that aesthetic, it manages to almost, but not quite, transcend it.

…

In film school there were some actors and actresses I made do some pretty absurd things toward the end of realizing my ‘vision’.

Looking back I am struck by how little of what I more or less convinced others to do willing would have been things I would have ever considered doing myself if the roles had been reversed—if I was put in front of the camera and told to enact the fantasies of someone hidden safely away behind it.

Morality is arbitrary at best and usually total horseshit. But there is dishonesty and disingenuousness in asking someone to do something I wouldn’t do if I were in their shoes—it makes the situation, no matter how carefully conceived or well-intended exploitative.

That’s really what I think of anal sex in the vast majority of heterosexual porn: the anus is presented is just another tighter hole that you just need to ask her to let fill with your rock hard cock.

I know all about the fact that it is four degrees warmer and has four more working muscles than the vagina. That’s great. But unless you are okay with being on the receiving end first, you really should not be thinking about what it might be like to find yourself on the giving end.

(via captio)

A not insubstantial number of images indelibly imprinted on my mind have been made by Traci Matlock and Ashley MacLean—or, as they are perhaps better known: Rose and Olive of tetheredtothesun on Flickr and Nerve.com photo blog fame.

One cannot talk about Rose and Olive without addressing process. As I recall, they their work was always intended as a collaborative undertaking: Rose shot Olive and Olive shot Rose. The subject of the resulting image became the final authority on whether or not the image would ever see the light of day. In this way the subject is also a co-author of the work—an especially clever fuck-you to the proprietorial expectation of traditional male spectator.

Their work rings truer than most, resonating with a sense that this moment was something that happened just as you see it here.

The result has always been in my opinion some of the most sexual explicit photographs—if not so much in content, in implication—I have ever seen.

It’s possible to dismiss it as cloyingly exhibitionist, but the trust between the two is too wide-eyed in its unwaveringly dedicated sincerity.

captio:

Meanwhile, in my train-travel-wetdream…

Photo by Pavel Kiselev

Wasn’t it Blake who noted the naked body of a woman is more a measure of heaven than any man deserves?

The first thing I notice here is not the very attractive—and even more naked—girl looking over her left shoulder at the landscape beyond the window against which she is leaning. What I see is a photograph taken inside a train.

I love trains. I am not a ‘railien’ or ‘railfan’, not by a long stretch. But there is something about trains that makes me smile. You would think this would have lessened some after spending around six hundred hours a year for five years traveling via rail.

It hasn’t.

Admittedly there are good days and there are bad days but over time I have learned a simple fact: I am rarely as focused and alone with my own chaos in as when I like this lounging Aphrodite stare out as the passing landscape blurs.

Commuter trains do not offer opportunity for much repose. And being naked on a train is not really something I had considered; however, the prospect of lurching vibrations shivering every inch of skin does is incredibly appealing to me.

And oh Jesus fucking Harold and Maude Christ, to make love and then savor the scent of shared bodies while everything around you hums until you start to make love again.

There is a lesson here about sharing everything.

Even the loneliness of being together.

UPDATE: Another image likely from the same series.

UPDATE 2: And another…

UPDATE 3: And another one, and another one…