Tag: female nudes

Christer Strömholm – [from first to last] Suzanne and Mimosa (196X); Suzanne and Mimosa (196X); Cobra and Caprice (1961); Narcisse (1968); Soraya and Sonia (1962); Cynthia (196X); Gerdy (196X)

Apparently Strömholm moved from Sweden to Paris towards the end of the 1950s. He took up residence in Place Blanche, at the heart of the red light district.

During his time in this locale, he befriended a number of the trans women sex workers in the neighborhood. (Many of who were working to save up money for gender confirmation surgeries.)

In 1983, he published this photos in a book entitled Les Amies de Place Blanche–of the work, he wrote: It was then— and still is— about obtaining the freedom to choose one’s own life and identity.

Source: my-secret-eye

Aeric Meredith-Goujon – Titles unknown (200X)

Tumblr has it’s problems. However, in at least one regard, I think it’s actually better than a museum.

When I go to a museum: I’m in a public place–which makes me uncomfortable to begin with. Short of seeing something that makes such a profound impression that I lose track of time and physical embodiment, I’m always super vigilant about monitoring my anxiety levels, hunger, do I have to pee and if I do which bathroom can I use with the least fuss.

All these factors preclude my not fully engaging with the majority of works I see.

Tumblr–until they made their asinine best stuff first option (which you all should disable this feature, double pronto)–is sort of wonderful with the way it both introduces you to stuff you wouldn’t have known you loved but also forces you to reconsider work you’ve previous passed on.

I’ve been in the anti Aeric Meredith-Goujon camp for years. He’s completely revamped his website, though; and his editing is better–although I do think he’s lost some of his early edginess in favor of making his bodies of work more accessible.

Either way, the above two images are fan-effing-tastic.

Aino Kannisto – [↑↖ ] Untitled {Launderette} (1999); [↑↗] Untitled {?} (20XX); [↖] Untitled {White Tub} (2008); [↗] Untitled {Stripey Curtains} (2013); [↙] Woman Washing Herself from Delicate Demons {collaboration with Satu Haavisto}; [↘] Woman on a Hospital Bed from Delicate Demons {collaboration with Satu Haavisto} (2014); [↓↙] Untitled {Shower II} (2000); [↓↘] Untitled {Bathtub} (2015)

Um… so… :::looks down at toe of boots and kicks clumsily at imaginary dirt::: this is like really, really, super, above-and-beyond, over-the-top phenomenal work.

Kannisto’s a member of The Helsinki School and fucking A, if you want to you yourself a jealousy aneurysm–go ahead and check that out. (It’s EXTREMELY rare to find a group with this much stellar work to their collective credit.)

Her use of color is more understated that Prue Stent–but understated color that still is integral to the work is actually incredibly difficult to manage.

Plus, I’m always gonna go gaga for any artist that is intimately familiar with both Uta Barth and Johannes Vermeer.

But what I think is most impressive about her work is how she fits so much narrative potential into such minimal and unadorned frames.

God, it is really unnerving to look at work that this incredible–because it’s a rare occasion and it’s happened maybe three times in the almost six years that I’ve been running this blog that I’ve seen indications that what I feel is important to photography as a form is something other artists are also tuned into/turned onto.

Thanks so much to @absolution-v, for his post featuring Kannisto–without it I’d probably have gone another five years without knowing about her. (Also, if you aren’t already, you should definitely check out Absolution-V’s blog–it’s offbeat and eccentric but I’m routinely introduced to work I’d otherwise miss.)

wonderlust photoworks in collaboration with @kattruffaut – Personae obscura (2017)

The process for this was: It was the strangest week in L.A. it rained every day I was there. It had cleared up a bit but not enough to keep us from losing the light early.

I love working with Kathleen, so we kept things going trying to do the best we could with truly deplorable lighting.

This was the last thing we did. It was just an notion: a figure behind the glass casting a shadow–I’d been thinking about the opening to the Pang Brothers’ The Eye (it’s extremely well done).

My film was massively underexposed. You could only see the vaguest hint of separation between three frames. I thought about just using the one with Kathleen pushing against the glass but it seemed underwhelming being just a minimal element amidst a sea of inky black.

The inspiration for these shots had been something moving–so I thought maybe that’s what I’m missing. (Also, I’m interested in a lot of what

I’m really piss poor when it comes to Photoshop. @jacsfishburne pointed me in the right direction and I was able to put this together. It’s the best I can do right now. And that’s probably a good thing because I see it as sort of in the same vein as Inside Flesh; I wanted it to appear interlaced and glowy. But that’s a couple instances of glitching pretty much an exact quote from them, and why would I do that. This can be better. It was an exercise. Still kinda better than I thought I’d be able to do–and that’s the secret (the longer you do it the better you get at it.)

Source unknown – Title unknown (19XX)

Looking at this photo I can’t help but ponder the notion of regret.

I encounter a lot of people who believe  life should be lived in such a fashion so as to remain completely absent regret.

Every time I interact with these folks, I find myself vaguely irked. I mean without regret, what motivates the urge to do better/be more/grow?

Yet, that thought is predicated by the belief that one should regret mistakes because a mistake entails a right way of doing things and a wrong way of doing things. By extension: there was the right way and a wrong way or more likely wrong ways and by not doing it the right way–one should regret doing it the wrong way.

It’s rarely that simple, though. I mean: very few people can sit down at a piano and having never taken a lesson before play a passable rendition of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. (No, you get to being able to play it by practicing–which means playing it for a very long period of time at varying levels of awfulness before it starts to come together.)

My reaction to other folks objecting to regret always surprises me–because I’m someone who claims to live in a way that seeks to minimize regret. What I mean when I say it is something more like: given a time machine and the option to travel back in time to fix things, the things I would opt to fix would do little to shift the broader outcome for a situation/scenario.

As a concrete example: When my ex and I broke up the first time, one of her reasons was that I so rarely walked with her back to the subway when she couldn’t stay the night with me at my place.

To her this represented a lack of motivation and concern for her safety and well-being. And I don’t have my head so far up my own ass that I can’t realize that it was occasionally due to the reason set that it’s freaking cold as fuck out, it’s late and I have to get up and get ready for work in 4 hours. More often than not I didn’t go because I knew she didn’t want to leave–but that she had to–and that my going with her would make it harder for her to leave. (Interestingly, she said that’s what she wanted–me to make it harder for her to leave instead of easier.)

So if you offered me a time machine, I’d go back and walk her back to the subway twice as often as I did. Not because I believe it would’ve changed anything about our relationship just because it was a small thing that would’ve meant a lot to someone I loved.

And that’s why I think of regret when I look at this: it’s not a great image, honestly. The foreshortening of the masturbating woman saves the composition from being unforgivably flat. The light is hard and over bright–tumbling in through a skylight and hazily blowing out in a blueish aura over the scene.

You can see just the faintest hints of the hanging tapestry backdrop. It’s neither great nor is it quite awful, either.

But what I notice–like when presented with the prospect of a time machine to go back and fix things I wish I’d done differently–are the four hands. The way the one woman is holding the other’s hips, how the woman is supporting the woman’s lower back while masturbating and the way the woman in the middle has her wrist clenched and locked.

The rightness of those elements–for me, at least–overpowers the shoddy and weaker aspects of this composition.

Source: oldtimepleasure