Paolo Filighera – Caterina, Kodak tmax 400 (2018)
First: Fucking A this is a great tableau. Damn fine work.
Second: Digital B&W is not an actual thing. If you want B&W, then you must use film. (And yes, I know this is a digital file but you can 120% tell when you digitize B&W film vs digital monochrome.)
Alexei Aven – Do It Yourself (2012)
This has been cropped from the original. On one hand this action removes an especially ostentatious watermark–on the other hand, the only reason to motivate such an action would be to try to amputate any connection to the author (a super shitty motivation).
It also diminishes the impact of the composition. The longer frame contributes a greater downward push to the way the eye scans the work–increasing the sense of her loneliness as well as emphasize the attention to texture–the floor, the mirror, her dress, etc.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen mirrors used quite this way and whether or not the intent was to present the examination of reflection in terms that are conceptually linked to putting together a puzzle, that’s the net result.
The murk suggests low the ambient lighting conditions weren’t especially good (the subject is lit from above and behind–I’d wager some sort of clerestory window type set up over her right shoulder.)
I’d fault it–if it weren’t so refreshing to see after scrolling through his 500px for seemingly forever to find this image and in the process passing scads of work that embodies everything I detest about modern image making. (For example: you know how some chefs who aren’t vegetarians but who are required to serve food to vegetarians seem to think that ‘fresh’ and ‘healthy’ are tastes? Well, fuck those guys. And fuck folks who seem to have missed the memo that ‘commercial’ and ‘expensive’ are not traits of actual fine art photography.
Masha Demianova – Untitled from Badlands series (201X)
By her own admission, Demianova is preoccupied with establishing a female gaze countering Berger vis-a-vis Benjamin’s art historical male gaze.
I won’t argue that her assertion is unfounded–the work does supports it. I just think that perhaps the notion might be more effective applied in analysis of Rita Lino’s work. Further, when she’s asked about the female gaze she trots out flippant non-answers a la I am a female so is my gaze.
In fairness, that half-assed quip comes from a painfully bad interview with DAZED in which they compare Demianova’s images to Petra Collins’. (As an aside: it seems if you want to talk about Collins you’d really be better suited using Arvida Byström or laurencephilomene-photo.)
Demianova’s work–preoccupation with the female gaze, notwithstanding–has far more in common with Igor Mukhin (a fellow Russian who also shoots both B&W and color) or, in an inversion of style, Noah Kalina (who is similarly caught up in fashion/editorial work and who favors skin tone just beyond the edge of overexposure, an equal but opposite effect to the way Demianova often lets her backgrounds edge dark and muddled to render a somewhat sinister Floria Sigismondi/Kubuki effect.)
But I’m not really especially critical of Demianova’s work. It doesn’t all appeal to me but like so many other artists of Russian and/or Eastern European extraction, there is an edge that draws me like a moth to a flame.
I think it has something to do with–and I may be off base her because I know little about Catholicism and even less about Eastern Orthodoxy–but there seems to be a different perspective on physicality. In the West, the body must by brought under rigid control, but I always feel very much as if in Russian and Eastern European work (at least modern work) there is a way in which physical sensuality is a spiritual realm.
So that is the bias which makes me without hesitation think the boy above is posed to recall the Blessed Virgin. The genderfucking undertone is satisfying. But what sells the photo–and (at least in my mind) suggests that even if Demianova hasn’t quite learned how to express it in interviews, she is not being even slightly pretentious when she mentions her aesthetic of a female gaze–is the fact that the way it’s shot with the photographer ostensibly standing over the subject and using a strobe, this feels like it’s also trying to re-appropriate an aesthetic now very nearly ruined by its association with predatory scum bags like Terry Richardson.
“And it will be more like a song, and less like its math
If you pull on my hair and bite me like that.” (Bright Eyes)
I used to submit my self shots, but now I have few reasons for submitting some I took of my partner.. first of all, there aren’t that many male submissions here usually and I don’t like this difference. this is quite generic view only. most personal is that I enjoy watching my partner playing with himself and it really turns me on. this time I took some pictures of the action..
It was a great Saturday afternoon and we had sex straight after this little shoot and few times later. different places, different intensity but all these were a real pleasure.
Absolutely gorgeous photo, I like everything about it from his sweet purple pants to her knees in the corner. Glad to hear you two are showing off for each other and documenting it, watching your partner get themselves off is pretty much the best way to learn about what they like and how to get them off. Sounds like you two had an amazing day, I’m quite jealous. I hope you two come back to share with us again, thanks again great job A+.
This and Knitphilia’s Rape isn’t sexy, but being a survivor is are far-and-a-fucking-way my favorite Nympho Ninjas’ Submission Sunday contributions. (An aside: while I am guardedly supportive of the community surrounding NN it does–as an Asian-American–bother me the way ‘ninja’ is so casually appropriated.)
I don’t think this is an objectively good image. Further, pairing it with Conor Oberst’s self-important ravings borders on intolerable. But, for all its flaws, it has something many more technically adept work lack: truthfulness–the frayed rag rug, messy hair, kick ass pants, beautiful light on the back of his right hand and knees jutting into the frame.
This is the first time in my life I have actually wished a depiction of male-bodied desire was of me–I almost globally identify with female-bodied depictions of desire. Here, I think it’s due to a mistaken notion that if I looked like this there’d might be a slightly better than impossible odds someone would find me attractive.
Those who peruse what I write will be aware of how much I loathe fucking gratuitous/illogical use of portrait orientation.
I never tire of calling that bullshit out. But, for the sake of avoiding redundancy and not beating a dead horse on the subject, I am going to henceforth distill these criticisms to a pithy hash tag: #skinnyframebullshit.
#skinnyframebullshit should be applied here. Further, the awkwardness is compounded by the top frame line’s amputate the young woman’s legs. (And if one was inclined toward hair splitting: an argument can be made that with the angle of light it would’ve been preferable to swap the position of her head and feet.)
Even with these shortcomings, I dig this image a lot. Mainly because it dodges the usual questions of subject/object and exhibitionism/voyeurism back loaded into visual depictions of masturbation. It has the sort of masturbation as punk rock/do it yrself sex positive vibe I adore.
Acetylene Eyes 