Tag: vulva

Joymii – What a Ride featuring Josephine and Den (2015)

There are a raft of reasons I ought not be posting this:

  • I am suspicious–at best–of close-ups (let alone extreme close-ups such as this)
  • It’s heteronormative in a way which really goddamned irks me
  • The above image has been cropped from the original (which I would’ve posted if it didn’t feature an intensely intrusive, dumb watermark).

All that BS aside, there is something not if not exactly substantive then I guess ‘considered’ about this. I don’t mean the polished gloss of it–although it certain supersedes that of quotidian porn.

What catches my eye is the extremely shallow depth of field–which allows both out of focus bits in the foreground and background.

Image makers are frequently obsessed with the flattering effects of so-called bokeh to isolate and emphasize the subject of the composition. But bokeh centers on rendering the background out of focus. Out of focus elements in the both the fore- and back- ground is more commonly associated with cinema–where due to the scene playing out of thousands of frames shifting focus can be used to guide who or what within the frame the audience is supposed to attend to. (I’ve written about this before.)

In the above image the point of sharpest focus draws attention to the act of genital penetration. In this crop, the action still manages to be ever-so-slightly off-center. No matter how pretty the soft focus, the image would’ve crumbled given knee-jerk dead center placement.

What’s interesting is in the uncropped version, everything shifts left and down. It’s a better frame by miles but I don’t think I’d have necessarily realized what I have about the image and why it appeals to me without comparing the crop and the original–although not strictly compliant, there are absolutely points of correlation with the composition and the Golden Ratio. (I recommend opening the diagram and the original side by side.)

Source: btgated

Source unknown – Title Unknown (20XX)

How much more effective would the above image have been if it adopted a perspective that included both women more or less in scale on par with this image?

It would not only have avoided reducing these two women to little more than their genitals and the area immediately surrounding them; it would’ve made for a better image.

Also, for the last fucking time: the distinction between B&W and color shouldn’t be a desire for it to seem more or less ‘arty’. respectively.

Source: sanstemptation

Konstantin Antioukhin – The Pear (2010)

A Kievan considered by many to be the best living engraver, Antioukhin specializes in bookplates.

As with any engraver, there’s a great debt owed to Dürer. And while it’s not visible here, Antioukhin wears his influences on his sleeve borrowing Klimt’s icon-like compositions and excessively filigreed ornamentation; the latter of which are then filtered through Mœbius’ riffing on the florid superfluity of line in Ernst’s decalomania. There’s also usually some Giger thrown in as leavening.

It’s a heady mix and like Belgian beers, it’s difficult to question the excess of flavor since it serves the resulting quality. However, as with Belgian beer, I tend to prefer unapologetic directness, I don’t always want to be overwhelmed by profusion.

In this piece, the influences are still there to discover for the discerning eye; but in the unity between form and execution there’s a diminution of their obviousness. To me this suggests Antioukhin would be well served to trust his own vision instead of always announcing his footing on the shoulders of giants.

Source: staging.artslant.com

Giangiacomo Pepe – Untitled (2013)

(PART I)

Back in 1999, Garrison Keillor suggested a broader conceptualization of what sex entails.

Sex is not a mechanical act that fails for lack of technique, and it is not a performance by the male for the audience of the female; it is a continuum of attraction that extends from the simplest conversation and the most innocent touching through the act of coitus.

A dear friend had posted it on her Facebook. It was literally the first thing I saw–all bleary-eyed–this morning.

It was one of those Oh shit moments where someone else somehow manages to express something you’ve been stumbling over for half a decade with a spare elegance.

For me, my experience of photography belongs to Keillor’s sexual spectrum. I mean, what but beauty causes anyone to lift a camera and sight a shot?

My reaction to beauty is unswervingly reliable: it overwhelms me, somersaults my tummy; makes me a blushing, shoe-tip-staring, dirt-kicking, boy-crazy teenage girl wanting from lips that won’t wet to shuddering knees.

***

Soon after the Keillor quote, Willow reblogged this from Sex Positive Activism

I was like what the fuck? A second Oh shit moment in the same day?

Okay, confession time: other than masturbation, I have been celibate for four-and-a-half-years. This is less a personal imperative than the fact that I am too irrevocably fucked for anyone to ever reciprocate the wanting I feel for them.

People always tell me that I need to have confidence. I think that’s bullshit. I don’t lack confidence. I lack a sense of entitlement.

When I was a film student, everyone worked with was invariably asked to do something either outrageous or obscene. No one took issue. Well, mostly. (In hindsight, I realize that I unintentionally created some very fucked up situations for people about whom I claimed to care a great deal.)

A number of things happened to shift this but one in particular stands out. For a group project, I had envisioned a scene with a bleeding, naked man smeared with mud running down a forest track. The actor who was supposed to play the part was a no-call/no-show and so I had to stand in. I was completely unnerved–I have always had a lot of body issues, they just haven’t always been the same–by the prospect of being naked in front of the small crew. I insisted on doing the scene wearing boxer shorts.

Watching the first and only (long story) screening, besides how my refusal to go nude ruined the scene, it hit me how fucked it was that I expected someone else to do the scene nude but I was unwilling to disrobe once I was in front of the camera.

***

As a result of these experiences, I abide by three etched-in-stone rules for photographing others:

  1. The photographer will under no circumstances touch the person(s) being photographed.
  2. The photographer will never ask anyone to enact anything the photographer would be unwilling to enact were the roles reversed.
  3. The photographer will never ask the person(s) being photographed to do anything the person(s) being photographed would not mutually desire the photographer to perform were the roles reversed.

***

The above image is not without flaws but between the mirror and the way she is reaching back to pull aside the crotch of her undergarment to reveal her vulva and anus, it is pornographic and capital fucking-A artful.

This is the type of work I want to make–conveying anger-verging-on-vaguely-self-destructive-arousal. I hardly expect Pepe to abide by my rules but the edge between consent and coercion is ambiguous enough on a good day that I worry about what goes on behind the scenes at his shoots.

I just don’t know how one ethically gets so many people to allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to pose in such a fashion. So many photographers seem to photograph their friends. That would be my preference. But the people in my life–who are fucking awesome and I wouldn’t trade for all the most-getting naked-est friends in the world–all have hang ups about nudity. It’s not that they aren’t sex-positive. (I just can’t do sex negativity. Not even a little.)

I worry that my own sexual frustration and realization that no one will ever ache for me the way I ache for them has tainted or will taing my work. It seems like if I could just find someone with whom I could share this sort of experimental openness in my work it would solve my problems.

The depressing truth is–there is no one who feels in kind toward me.

Giangiacomo Pepe – Untitled (2013)

PART I

Much of this rocks my socks: it’s shot on film, contains explicit nudity and the model is my ‘type’ to a T–thin with small breasts and geeky glasses; for good measure: throw in my permanent association of watermelons wjth Tsai Ming-liang’s brilliant (screw the critics) and perverse The Wayward Cloud.

There are at least two things about it that bother me, however. I don’t want to bring the body hair fetishism fire down, so let me start by saying: when it comes to body hair I believe–without equivocation– your body, your rules.

The trouble is due to the ubiquity of utterly depilated female bodies, undue cultural pressure against body hair exists and by existing it makes it more of a struggle to go your own way.

There’s the matter of her amputated legs, too. (Such is never justified–especially in the context of images featuring full-frontal nudity–but at least there is a compositional sense to it–her navel marks the center of the frame, the upper frame edge just misses her raised forearm and the concrete door jamb running along the second vertical third.)

I feel compelled to compare/contrast Pepe’s work Lina Scheynius, Igor Mukhin and Ren Hang. Yes, there’s extensive variations in styles, themes and tone: Scheynius is playful, Mukhin, insular and unflinching and Hang walks a fine line between confronting taboos and centering them on his audience.

In a similar vein, Pepe leads with his fetishizing of the female body.

The feels such fetishizing gives me are a complicated knot I’ve been wrestling to unravel for more than half a decade.

(PART II)

Source: giangiacomopepe

Exclusive Teen Porn – Teen Threesome featuring Peach + Kyara (2012)

I would really rather skip the citations here because ExclusiveTeen Porn’s features a downright creepy website.

I am more surprised by how unsavory it is than I really should be considering my first reaction to this was SMASH THE PATRIARCHY!

But between the third and fourth syllable of ‘patriarchy’ I’ve registered the red outlining the lower crest of Peach’s right ear, pink flush speading through her checks. And Jesus Christ, her expression–eye closed, lips pressed hard against enamel. trying to focus on sensation, to concentrate to not lose the rhythm, holding out against surrender but want to fall hopelessly hard, now and forever.

My thoughts shift back to how bankrupt this is of artfulness or subtlety. Don’t get me wrong the more graphic the depictions of sex, the happier I am. But I just don’t see how this is anything other than an effort to cater to the basest aspects of what society whispers behind its hands is the stuff firing masculine sexuality. This fellow has two young women who are presented as focused on his sexual pleasure. (Admittedly, the rest of the series does pay lip service to an interest in the women’s pleasure.)

There’s momentary fluttery where I realize that Peach’s labia are just crowning the swollen corona of her lover’s erection and you can see his glans peaking out. That has to feel exquisite.

This isn’t art. Not even close. It’s not supposed to be. Ultimately though it’s like only being able to eat candy when you want something healthy and substantive.

I guess I just don’t understand how with a seemingly legit location with reasonable lighting and people who are willing to be photographed doing virtually anything, why more of a thought isn’t given to presentation.

Put another way: given all the same ingredients, I fundamentally believe it is possible to make art. The fact that no one ever tries is something I take a little bit like a kick in the teeth.

Not to mention it is some insufferable #skinnyframebullshit.

Two final notes:

  1. there is another version of this image floating around Tumblr. It looks terrible. Why do people insist on doing this?
  2. this image has been cropped a quarter of an inch or so on the bottom to remove a watermark.

Source: unknown

In the best case, this essentializes female-bodiedness to genitalia. (Duchamp’s Etante Donnés being a likely point of departure isn’t a good enough excuse.) Worst case–which isn’t all that different from the best case–it operates as misogynistic synecdoche.

The presentation is rather clever (mounted Kodachrome slide as a winking meta-joke on fetishization); but, not so clever as to dismiss criticisms.

(There’s maybe also a #skinnyframebullshit argument to posit.)

With these foibles, it‘s still motherfucking gorgeous. I don’t care how expensive and difficult it was to manage, Kodachrome ran circles around later color positive stocks.

And now that Fuji discontinued Astia, there is no longer a world class color transparency stock. Yes, there are good stocks–I use Provia 100, to better than middling results. And a good chrome–in terms of color reciprocity–is indisputably preferable to the best negative stock. (Whereas neg stocks compared to digital are like comparing the illumination of the sun to pitch darkness encroaching on a guttering flame.)

I mention this partly to provide context on my fetish object assertion and as a result of recent speculation that Fuji may be leaving the E-6 party in the next five years; a move that would mark the end of color positive film stocks.

Motherfucking megapixels suck at B&W due to digital only theoretically supporting 75% of the range of blacks the human eye can see. That’s why there will always be B&W film stocks. But despite still remaining grossly inferior, digital is killing color. I categorically don’t want to live in a world where representing colors like those in Steve McCurry’s so-called Afghan Mona Lisa have been rendered obsolete due to an insistence on following the path of least resistance.