Source Unknown
The psychedelic background reminds me of some of the stuff Ryan McGinley has shot in caves. The pose would seem to even further suggest him, except that he’d shoot in a studio with more even lighting and acknowledgement of the camera.
Were I to see this image in a magazine, I probably wouldn’t give it pause. But the way it is presented here–on what appears to be a cheap bathmat, suggesting an implicit POV shot–contributes a luridness in which I am always inclined to revel.
Source Unknown
“Masculinity is clothing; femininity is flesh.”
–My erstwhile philosophy professor
summarizing Nancy Chodorow.
Alexander Wolff
Pauwen en reigers[Cinematographer: Geert Lautenschutz]
Peacocks and Herons is a half-hour comedic series which aired on Dutch television in the late aughts.
As far as what its about: search me (There’s nothing about it in English.)
I don’t make a habit of posting shit I know fuck all about but this not only has a nice Jeff Cronenweth vibe, it represents something of which there should be a lot more: depictions of male nudity in visual culture.
Granted I haven’t seen a single episode Peacocks and Herons, it could be packed with graphic depictions of female bodied nudity. But I would still give kudos to the Dutch.
Why kudos? Unfortunately we haven’t made very much progress in the more than thirty years since the instance of full-frontal male nudity in Fast Times at Ridgemont High was eight-sixed due to erect genitalia being perceived as ‘aggressive’ by the MPAA censors.
Meanwhile for every scene of male bodied nudity managing to somehow slip through unchallenged, tens of thousands of instances of female bodied nudity flood in unchecked. A proliferation which pushes the boundaries of what is considered edgy/graphic. To the point where the majority of instances of female bodied nudity carry an instinctive and compelling correlation to sexual activity.
I’m with Blake on his assertion that “the naked woman’s body is a portion of eternity to great for they eye of man.” But the glaring double standard and inequality it facilitates piss me right the fuck right off.
We need more Micheal Fassbender in Shame, more Alexander Skarsgård, more Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises, more Peacocks and Herons.
I have tried to source this but neither Google Image search or TinEye are coming up with anything conclusive.
This uncertainty exacerbates my polar reactions to it. Most of the time, the muddiness is reminiscent of Duane Michals early-ish work, particularlly a moment of perfection.
But there are also times–like writing this–where the position way his arms are positioned and his motion blurred face feel more like a horror film, a sort of E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten-esque haunted house where the ghost seduces then strangles the amorous.
I don’t know what to make of it. Not in an I don’t give fuck one about it, though. It’s so true what is said about the distance between what we love and hate is much less than the disparity separating love from apathy.
There something else rattling around in my head about the body as a house haunted by a soul, but language and I are having another one of our frequent sullen tiffs. Besides, any time it starts to feel like the only thing I have ever known, I start to forget how the stories go.
Google Image Search suggests the earliest instance of this image being post to a site on Blogspot called Tacobill in June 2010 even though all the links on the page are broken. Beginning in August 2010 a broad swath of entries are attributed to So Many Boys. (EDIT: Wyohhandplay was kind enough to inform me that the source for this is bitemarks.)
It’s really a shame. For what it is– a staged photo of a boy with his fist circling his cock– I think this is classy.
The composition is nice. He’s presented entirely within the frame, not making eye contact with they camera. His body’s mid-line angles to his right, counter-balancing the framing which clips the vertical of the lamp base against the middle vertical of the metal bed frame/headboard.
With the lamp turned toward the wall, the light blows out into a white-hot super overexposed orb. In turn this allows the reflected light to illuminate the rest of the frame with appealing, dusky tones.
It’s an artful take on what could have easily been another uninteresting, disposable iteration of the same old thing.
42112 (by brittanymarkert)
I like this image—perhaps for the wrong reasons.
To my eye, it represents a discontinuity with the rest of Ms. Market’s work because I am not inclined to associate it with an obvious photo-historical reference (i.e. Untitled is an obvious homage mashup of Francesca Woodman’s Untitled Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-76 and Untitled Providence, Rhode Island 1976; this still from the hotel haunting screams Diane Arbus via Kubrick, while room 109 invokes David Lynch with the subtlety of a thunderstorm.
Influence is crucial—sheer force of will and work ethic only goes so far. Hell, without inspiration, how many would have picked up a camera to begin with? Let alone kept on after all those rolls of ruined film, struggling through plateau after plateau in the work, etc.
So called fine art photography operates off the principle that imitation of your influences forms the most effective framework for becoming a photographer. Although seen through rose colored glasses, Arno Rafael Minkkinen presents the essential premise behind fine art photography with insight and aplomb in his renowned Helsinki Bus Station Theory.
While I disagree with the notion that gallery owners would so much give you the time of day let alone inquire as to your familiarity with X or Y artist and object to prejudicing the destination over the journey, Minkkinen’s theory does have special resonance for photographers with a vested interest in visual narrative or those—like Ms. Market—who count filmmakers among their foremost influences since the Helsinki bus station presents us a bit of a conundrum.
Even though I am not, let’s say—for the sake of argument— I am a enamored with Stanley Kubrick’s films. But for whatever reason, I prefer the medium of photographer so I arrive the Helsinki bus station and after looking around decide that to take a bus departing from the same platform as Diane Arbus. However, once on board I don’t even make it as far as the suburbs before realizing this isn’t for me. I go back and decide to follow the Walker Evans’ line—which departs from a platform on the opposite side of the station as the previous one. Maybe I make it a little further this time but quickly discover it’s still not for me. What then?
I go back and merely because I have no idea what else to do I wander onto the platform from whence Ansel Adams departed. This time the route choice sticks—but not due to being on a line the focuses on landscape photographer so much as finding a route pathologically preoccupied with the technical. (After all, what Kubrick lacked as a storyteller he more than compensated for with his exacting abilities as a technician and unparalleled production designer.)
Filmmaking and photography are sibling art forms and like siblings, you cannot approach them in an identical fashion. Those of us who come to photography by way of narrative/filmmaking share a frighteningly similar list of influences that, to stick with the metaphor, are dispersed all over the Finnish countryside. Most are contradictory. Mistakes are going to be made; routes will need to be abandoned and subsequently re-chosen as the line that works for each person is almost never the first choice.
But back to this image—I like it. And I like it because it is one of the few images where I do not feel the photographer is not leaning on something that has been said well before in order to add feeling, depth or relevance to her own ideas.
Flattery is the sincerest form of flattery. Brittany Market demonstrates she handle imitation flawlessly. My interest in her work is what she will produce when she finds herself on a line long enough to leave the Helsinki suburbs behind. This image suggests a great deal of potential that will hopefully be realized in her maturing work.
Encouragement request
EDIT I: it has been brought to my attention that the young woman in this image is Kristine Kahill and that this image was originally posted on Sex and Submission (a Kink.com imprint). Sex and Submission interviews models before and after the sessions. In other words, explicit consent is given for the acts depicted in the subsequent images.
Furthermore, it seems the post can be read as suggesting being submissive is a ‘reprehensible’ behavior. I assure you, that was never my intention. As someone who is thoroughly hardwired as a switch–I am not down on D/s practices at all.
I am opting to leave the original post untouched. I make mistakes. And I am sorry if my comments offended anyone. It still concerns me, however, that this image is presented entirely disconnected from its original context. In the future I will make every effort to do better due diligence. That being said, all things being equal I do stand by my reading of the problematic aspects of this image as it originally presented to me.
EDIT II: Also, I neglected to mention this is some straight-up #skinnyframebullshit.
TinEye turns up two ‘matches’ for this: both in color, both cropped and both hosted by purveyors of violent porn.
But anything more than a glance reveals as much: the composition of the image says as clearly as if the image maker had drafted a memo and sent it to every viewer: women are nothing more than props existing for the sole purpose of accommodating male desire.
It’s a reprehensible ideology. And this picture does almost nothing for me.
Except the young woman’s face, hairstyle and how her eyes accentuate her expression bears more than passing resemblance to an erstwhile co-worker on whom I have a crush.
It’s not the first time I’ve chanced upon porn which reminds me of people I trust—and by that I merely mean someone who can touch me without causing me to flinch. Usually, I avert my eyes—much the way I would if a loose fitting top gaps and offers a glimpse of an elicit vista. It’s not that I don’t want to see—fucking Christ on Christmas, I exist to absorb sensory input.
I don’t feel the same inclination here, however; it’s a feeling that I am interested in explaining without judgment or justification—not because either does not belong here but because this response is such a fatherfucking anomaly.
Navigating boundaries is something for which I lack any talent. I don’t really understand them because for all intents and purposes I do not have any of my own. But I comprehend—at least academically—that other people do. I think of boundaries as privacy force fields. (Go ahead and laugh.) Privacy force fields are like whatever it is about a door that prevents a vampire from passing without being invited.
Looking down the front of a loose blouse or connecting a pornographic image with someone I trust usually causes me to feel like a vampire trying to enter a home without being invited.
It’s the same with masturbatory fantasies. Granted when I masturbate I don’t usually think about scenarios or exchanges so much as the process is something more like meditation or stretching my arm through cage bars towards a hanging key I can almost just reach.
On the occasions where I please myself while fantasizing about someone, it’s as a rule never someone with whom I am close. (Of course it’s a different story if the person consents—but this has only happened once with someone show I was never romantically involved.)
There are two notable exceptions. One is my crush.
Perhaps it’s not really an exception. I don’t fantasize about how she might touch me, how I might touch her in turn and where that might lead. Instead I try to picture her in the same room as me—she’s one of those women whose fundamental perception is of being unattractive. She’s not upset about it; in fact, she cultivates an image of herself as not being able to give less of a fuck of what anyone else thinks of her. Of course, this in combination with her vicious wit, talent and intelligence makes her even more attractive. Then I am in the same cell again stretching, reaching for, almost touch that hanging key that if I can only reach will unlock a treasure chest with a mirror that if she held up she could glimpse herself as I see her through my eyes.
Then I fall away, crawl back but fail.
I don’t know why I refuse to turn away in this case. But in so doing, I remain unashamed.
let me give you a taste
I posted an image featuring this pair back in early December.
It’s cropped and the colors were mangled to hell—can someone explain to me Tumblr’s pervasive affection for the offset slider? I continue to dig that image and stand by my original comments.
Thus I was excited to happen upon another image featuring the same pair even if it was clear although the colors were better the composition was decidedly less inspired. Still, I have do have a soft spot for erotic imagery that leaves the man more exposed than the woman.
Then I noticed the boy’s expression which reads to me as a sort of haughty bitch-why-aren’t-you-deep-throating-my-shit-already pout. Uh, hello Fuckwit. She has her soft, warm tongue on the most sensitive part of your anatomy. Please die. Now.
I should have left it at that. But no, I am trying to be a more thorough curator. I just had to query TinEye.
And le sigh, it’s true the images are part of a series. It’s hosted on BeataPorn. (There’s a FREE PREVIEW of the series but probably unnecessary spoiler: it’s the same old eyes-bleeding-from-uninspired-repetition-of-the-routinzed-hetero-normative suck-and-fuck charade.)
Ren Hang’s work elicits equal and opposite reactions in me.
Few photographers exhibit such an omnivorous eye; fewer gaze upon such transgressive material.
And I fucking adore Hang’s non-prejudicial and unapologetic depictions of an exceedingly broad range of graphic human sexuality.
Unfortunately, a by-product of what I love also makes the work uncomfortable for me: confrontation.
After more than a half century of pornography rigidly marketed to exclusive sexual demographics, displaying a picture of a woman applying lipstick to her vulva next to a photo of a male-on-male anal sex is an inherently confrontational act. I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, I applaud it: FUCK goddamn centuries of hetero-normativity and straight privilege bullshit.
What bothers me is the way the majority of Hang’s work features on under-current of aggression. As if the inherent confrontation of the presentation takes second seat to something closer to rubbing the viewer’s nose in what is displayed.
Which is why this image stands out to me: the color of the grass so closely matches the color of his skin that the boys erect cock, thrust hips and come-hither eye contact with the camera evinces an almost counter-intuitive vulnerability.
Acetylene Eyes 