Tag: B&W

Source unknown – Title Unknown (date unknown)

This is meant to resemble the Pietà, a work–predominantly represented sculpturally–wherein the Virgin Mary cradles Jesus Christ’s crucified body.

In general, I’m not into religious art–it’s largely redundantly boring and although I realize the majority of it was conceptualized as a means of earning a living through the practice of one’s art while also encoding religious work with a humanist undertow.

Pietàs are a notable exception–there’s just something viscerally affecting about them.

It took seeing this image for me to realize why I dig Pietàs: art historically the aren’t exactly erotic in form of fashion but they are decidedly physical. Christ’s musculature assuming a taut not of will but driven by the pull of his body’s weight by gravity. The duality of the Virgin’s attention to both the emptiness of the vessel as well as the vessel itself.

If the Virgin did cradle her son’s body after he was taken down and before he was put into the tomb, he almost certainly would have been naked–after all  Mark 15:24 notes the soldiers guarding him gambled for possession of his garments.

With Pietàs there is always a feeling that the cloth in which Christ’s junk is shrouded, was a concession to the holy patrons that commissioned the works and less an interest of the artist.

So while I don’t think the above is well executed–I am entirely enamored with it as pushes the erotic undertow to the fore. (I think there’s a great deal of room to explore various erotic notions with this form: la petite mort, angel lust and any number of other coded references. (One of my favorite erotic Pietàs is by the incredibly talented Paula Aparicio.)

Further I think there’s a winking bit of blasphemy to this as Jesus–if he actually existed as a legitimate historical figure–was a 33 year old man with a 36 hour refractory period. Whereas, the gentleman pictured above is already risen again.

Source: phallusandart

Patricio Suarez – Desiree Film Scans (2015)

The list of photographers whose work I’ll unreservedly endorse is short. Today, it got one photographer longer: Patricio Suarez.

I’m not even sure where to start. I mean, the quality of the work speaks for itself.

My customary fetish for extreme quality takes a back seat here next to how strongly these images resonate with me. It’s totally knee jerk, but the compositional logic is more than a little reminiscent of Mark Romanek–and that’s not a reference I toss around lightly.

As someone who came to photography via cinematography, there’s a tendency in my experience for photographers to treat locations as more of aesthetic enhancement or simple back drop than a facet in a holistic image.

Thus, what really blows me right the fuck a-fucking-way is the way Suarez creates portraits anchored in the relationship between person and personal occupancy of space–location informs character, character informs location.

(It’s not at all surprising that Suarez’s day job is a commercial director of photography.)

His images of Nettie Harris are jaw dropping in their Nettie-ness. Short of ericashires, no one shoots Johanna Stickland in so unmediated and present-in-the-moment a manner. And Kelsey Dylan… bring my smelling salts because I’m feeling faint…

All-around fucking fantastic.

Source: psuarez

fotocracker – two young men in bed (2015)

This is waaay overexposed–note the highlight at top center is indistinguishable from the white frame. Also, again–intermittently–along the upper right edge.

Same thing with the man kneeling on the bed–his skin is effectively three tones–shadow with no detail, overexposed with minimal detail and overexposed.

It’s a clumsy visual metaphor–shadow becoming light; probably due to the use of a high contrast Polaroid stock. (Although, I very much dig the mussed sheets being the only part of the frame with any trace of mid-tones–another visual metaphor and one that actually functions.),

As dynamic a sight as the the lad’s erection appears, I feel that the extreme contrast detracts from the enthralling composition. I mean ditch the painting on the brick wall and offer a more balanced exposure and this would be a world class photograph.

Which is not to say I don’t like it as it is–I’m just interested in the texture of the scene and the aesthetically wondrous hard-on and this prioritizes the latter over the former.

Source: fotocracker

Timur Suponov – Untitled (2013)

As someone who has–in fairness–done more than my fair share of drugs, I’m fascinated by synesthesia.

As someone who–and this is true–shops for clothing by going shelf to rack to shelf feeling the material between my thumb and forefinger and only evaluating the style, cut and color after finding something that feels nice against my skin, I think photography has crazy untapped potential to convey a synesthetic sense of texture.

I can’t say this is a good image. It does have a nice tonal range and I appreciate that the image maker has included her entire body without chopping off limbs. The angle of the headboard(?) and foot of the cushions is distracting and although it’s supposed to be counterbalanced by the suffused lights coming through the diaphanous curtains, that strategy is a failure.

But dat texture, tho. The warn nearly threadbare cushions, the knit skirt–look at the way it stretches against her outer left thigh and even the curtains. In fact, if this were film and printed on nice rag based stock, her skin would take on a sense of taut sheen that it only hints at here.

Source: cangrejo1

Source unknown – Title Unknown (201X)

Giving or receiving assplay of any sort is not exactly my cup of tea. But on a limited experimental level I’m down for just about anything except anilingus.

I do have a teensy fetish for pegging imagery. Less for the act depicted and more for the inherent gender-fuckery and while the power/control vs submission of BDSM tends to be a huge turn off for me, there’s a sense of being completely at someone else’s mercy that appeals to me.

In the case of this clip, I love that his touching and she’s caressing him. The smirk on her face as she thrusts suddenly and then savors his response is exquisite.

The same expression also makes me inconsolably sad. The only sexual pleasure I’ve experienced for just shy of the last six years has been self-driven. And one of the primary differences between masturbation and sexual intercourse, is that with the former there’s inevitably a point beyond which one cannot advance–not unlike the impossibility of self-tickling; but with (a) sexual partner(s), boundaries tend to stretch until they shatter completely.

Source: straponleevie

Chip Willis – Nathalia Rhodes (2015)

As someone fluent in only one language (English); and who therefore is in the habit of reading left to right, this image caters to my expectations.

I wish I had the time to super impose angled rule of thirds indicator markings similar to what I did with this photograph by Igor Mukin. It would be immediately clear that what I’m guessing is an out-of-focus towel rack in the lower left foreground, the inside edge of the tub and the mildewy grout-line between the tub and the wall separate the image into thirds diagonally.

As a westerner who’s first language is English, I read left-to-right. thus I scan this image starting from the top left. The repetition of the diagonal draws my eye down and right, along the outside edge of the tub.

What’s interesting here is that unlike the Mukhin image, the diagonal of the top of the diagonals of the top and bottom of the mirror and the front and back of the toilet lid don’t align with thirds–but they do represent the most dense range of contrast with in the image.

In the absence of the second set of guiding third indicators, The angle of Rhodes legs functions as the compositional element that redirects the eye from right to left. (Notice: that the angle of her legs forms the base of an acute triangle of which the reflection of her face is the vertex.)

I’m not ready to attribute to this a status of some next level visual shit. It is inspired though. The pose and boots all scream tired porn tropes. However, the effort to include the face–anytime you shoot with mirrors you’re introducing seven different flavors of hell to the process–subverts the seeming unmitigated sexualization of the body as object. (In other words, even though Rhodes is effectively chopped in two by the frame edge, her holistic totality is at least illustrated.

The more I look at this the less I see it as gratuitously graphic. There are details that command attention: the black bobby pins against the white porcelain toilet lid, the strategic placement of the the rear hem of her dress and her gaze focused on the photographer instead of the camera are all inspired touches.

This is the first of Willis’ images I’ve seen where I’m convinced that my suspicion he uses porn tropes in a critical instead of incidental fashion is on the right track. And the fact the above is maybe a little heavy handed in its efforts to conflate fashion editorial work with pornography; however, the criticism is too stunningly on-point/fiendishly executed for me to even thing of docking points.

Joe Traina – Kelsey Dylan (2013)

The so-suffused-it-appears-smoky backlighting here is just sumptuous–not unlike sfumato steeped in the implicit neo-paganism of the Hudson River School and then heartily infused with the sensibilities of Gerhard Richter’s landscape paintings.

And Dylan’s pose reminds me of a Venus born without a societal imposed sense of bodily shame.

I’m extremely fond of this image but I do have to take issue with a facet of its presentation. I’m personally against watermarking images. Yeah, yeah.. I understand people regularly steal stuff. But if you as the image maker have done your work, it bears your distinctive finger print with or without a water mark.

I admit that’s a personal peccadillo. However, if you’re an image maker who insists on using a watermark–be mindful of the fact that you are an image maker and therefore, ostensibly, a visual art. This tendency for visual arts to employ typographic watermarks is fucking inexcusably lame. (This is perhaps the only accolade I’ll ever offer SingleChair: he gets it and his watermark might as well be considered the gold standard–ahead of literally thousands of superior image makers who slap together a 75% transparency text logo. Mad unsat.)

Source: trainaphotography

Norman Jean Roy – Laverne Cox for Allure Magazine (2015)

Honestly, I’m just kind of perpetually flustered by Ms. Cox. She is articulate, brave and as jaw-droppingly talented as she is beautiful. (She’s the only reason I still bother with OITNB—because seriously don’t even get me started on Jenji Kohan’s and her faux edgy, patronizing bullshit better-than-thou narcissistic tokenist bullshit.)

The response to this image of Cox has been predictable. Noah Berlatsky, at Playboy of all places, exposes radical feminist exclusionism in several responses.

And I don’t want to diminish the import of the image–because in a way it is revelatory. The problem I have with it is the implicit violence of the frame edge. It’s one thing to present Cox as sexy–I’d say it’s unavoidable, she’s positively sultry like always–it’s the symbolic rendering of her immobile by the amputation of her feet that doesn’t sit well with me.

April-Lea Hutchinson – Untitled (2012)

Underlying Hutchinson’s work is a visual equivalent of the restless energy which motivates a lion to pace back and forth behind the bars.

There’s a sense that she shares a strong connection with those she photographs. I don’t know anyone who manages to capture Tanya Dakin in such an assured and sultry state– bearing in mind that by the word ‘sultry’ I mean it in much the fashion as my dear friend who was born and raised in the deep south and always tells me that southern ladies never sweat, the merely become increasingly sultry. (Of course, she said this as she was visible sweating through her linen dress…but her point was well taken.)

She also manages to summon an affected coyness from Johanna Stickland that you never see anywhere else in either of their respective work.

It’s interesting that she happens to be close friends with both. As if the history of mutual understanding that fostered the relationship, provides a basis wherein either party is comfortable trying on and shedding whatever roles or perception of self seem to fit in the moment without judgment or consequences.

And that freedom in the moment, seems to be an effective tool in work that is consistently and unapologetically erotic.