Tag: water

Adi Putra – Once in a Blue Moon (2014)

This is an impressive image. Not so much based on its virtues as its success in the face of ubiquity.

By that, I mean: I’m pretty sure everyone who has ever tried to make images of nudes in situ, has tried to produce an image like this and found the eventual product to be far less compelling than the impetus that spurred the act of creation.

This succeeds partly because of perspective (the horizon divides the visual field into constituent parts: 40% water and 60% sky–a result of the camera being positioned several feet lower than the usual human POV, which would’ve rendered the horizon bisecting the model’s waistline), allusion (pretty sure this pose in this environment is intended to recall The Colossus of Rhodes), ambiguity (the object in the sky is the sun, but with the weird effect of the strobe it’s difficult to tell whether or not its the moon, which is after all in keeping with the title) and the blue hair (which always commands attention).

Also, I really like how if you look closely you can see that she’s wearing sandals–a necessity if you’re going to walk on volcanic rock like that without cutting your feet to ribbons, the subtle reflection of her legs along with the sparkling glitter of the sunlight on the water’s surface and the fact that if you zoom in you can actually distinguish her shadowed labial cleft (not that it is a sexual image but to merely convey that whether or not nudity is sexual has nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with intent and consent.

Scott Morgan – IMG_0283 [1] (2012)

On dry land, even in a studio under canned lighting, this would be a dynamic as fuck pose but orchastrating it so that the pose occurs in approximately a foot of water is inspired.

The problem is that you can’t really appreciate how completely mesmerizing the surface of water can appear when rendered in B&W given this angle.

The better angle would’ve been at roughly the same height as this image, only with the camera angled to see the woman’s face.

Unfortunately that wouldn’t work–since part of what makes this composition work is that the figure is presented off-center and the slanting light capturing glistening skin and taut musculature serves to balance it. Shifting into the better position would black light and in so doing interrupt the carefully positioned horizon (which contributes an oneiric tone) by necessarily including the intersection of water and shoreline from the alternate angle.

Instead, the best course of action would probably have been for the woman to shift 90 degrees clockwise and then to have the camera line up with her face. This would further emphasize the surface of the water and diminish the degree to which the shadows consume her hair, arms and legs.

Although, props to the image maker for having the sense not to make this a full on crotch shot. I know about two hundred lesser image makers who would’ve done exactly that given this pose.

Source: flickr.com

Ayaka Yamamoto – Evita Goze from Portraits of Girls in Latvia and Estonia series (2013)

Earlier this week I reblogged a quote from Reverend Bobby Anger:

There is more than finding the right light to shoot it. You must find
the people with the right light in them.

I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment. In fact, although I realize it’s meant as  a poetic metaphor–likely riffing off the line that may or may not really be Hemingway and is at least half Leonard Cohen:

We are all broken—that’s how the light gets in.

But as someone who on occasion experiences people with a glow about them–and I say experience because it’s typically something you feel for a time before you actually see anything and the seeing is rarely more than like the last question on those how many colors can you distinguish tests where you can’t actually see the difference so much as one of the samples feels slightly different.

Photographer and Model Evita Goze is an example of someone who possesses a similar quality. Only to call it light perhaps mischaracterizes it–it’s the thread stitching both her personal photographic work and her modeling together, a stillness both resigned and expectant.

I’m not sure how else to explain it other than to refer to Plotinus. Now forgive me if I don’t get this 100% correct–it’s been more than a decade since I studied this–but as I remember Plotinus’ trip was he had this absolutely earth-shattering transcendent experience. Post-experience, he was distraught and depressed… I mean after mystical union with The One, day-to-day exigencies here in the desert of the real positively pale in comparison.

It wasn’t a singular experience. He reconnected with it several more times and his notion with regard to the meaning of life took shape accordingly. He maintained that the purpose of human life is to wait expectantly for those moments of self-transcendence so that we are prepared to receive them when they present themselves.

There is absolutely something of that waiting in-between-ness to Goze’s interactions with the world of concrete visual representation. She is definitely near the top of a very short list of people I would do just about anything to work with.

Source: featureshoot.com

Chadwick Tyler – Cora Keegan (2014)

I think there are all kinds of negative implications when you use the frame to dismember a body like this. HOWEVER, everything else about this is in-fucking-credible–the Albers-esque palate, the texture and semi-reflective opacity of the water, Keegan’s skin tone and pose, etc.

The other thing I want to point out here is to reiterate the notion that as bad as it is to amputate legs, it’s much MUCH worse to decapitate.

I know, I know, you want to reclaim your body autonomy while remaining anonymous. I hardcore support you. But there are literally hundreds of ways for you to post your nudes without resorting to offing your own head. The above is a stellar example. Yes, Cora Keegan is a famous model–but the principle still applies. A little creativity instead of the lazy head-out of frame strategy produces seismically better results.

Here are some more examples: Janosch Simon, Jakub P and Elene Usdin.

If you’re willing to think outside the box and engage your critical, creative problem solving skills, then you’ll likely be able to keep your head inside the box while making a better picture and remaining anonymous.

Source: thekuratorr

choomathy:

this series was fun. I remember my tutor tried to get all “damn girl I love your work with feminism what a deep concept” and I was like nah I just like baths and … nipples

Baths and nipples, indeed.

Jaw, meet the floor. Floor, jaw. Get familiar with each other because every time I look at these my brain explodes.

I guess I can see reading a feminist agenda into this but I’m inclined to immediately link it with Bernd and Hilla Becher’s industrial typologies.

But either way, this as precocious as it is astonishing. Crazy props to Chloe Killip for not only having something captivating to say but finding the most breath-taking way of saying it.

epicnudesofcinema:

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.

danish-principle:

Joanna Szproch [also : The Quiet Front & Dripbook]

Welcome to Swoon Town. Population: me.

This. Is. Just… woah & woah again & amen.

Yes, it flouts conventions I drone on & on about: hands cut off at the left frame edge, legs amputated mid-calf by the right third of the upper margin.

Underlying these choices, however, is a logic strengthening the ambiguity of Eva’s pose: is she being lowered into the water or pulled from it?

& ambiguity in keeping with the image’s liminality; lingering as it does between color & desaturation; at once strong & vulnerable, artful & lascivious.

I cannot even begin to list the host of things that go through my head when I look at this image. But two things seem vital to mention. First, I am jealous of Eva. Not because she is so much prettier than me & not because I wish this was me instead of her (even though I do a little, okay: a lot.). It’s that I want to be seen by someone (anyone, honestly) the way Szporch sees Eva through her camera.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure: I wish I had made this image. It is chapter & verse the sort of work I try–& more of than not fail–to make.

Juan Troncoso – Premonición 2009 (Made with a Nikon D300)

There are strong similarities between Troncoso’s work and art historical precedents. For example: Iluso smacks of Margritte, Real’s bad acid trip made flesh, borrows from a similar work– which escapes me at the moment but also used fragmented images attached to models’ bodies for unnerving effect–both owing a thing or fifty to Max Ernst.

But I can’t help thinking the references are little more than premeditated sleight of hand. The first clue is the image quality. There simply are not that many people around who can coax decent greyscales from digital equipment. Second, though his Flickr account is noteworthy, his personal website–despite its awkward and unwieldy layout– is incisively curated.

My Spanish is quite rusty but I ran Troncoso’s artist statement from the body of work in which this image features through a translation engine. What resulted was borderline nonsense. I tried to clean it up a bit–bear in mind my Spanish grammar is severely limited by my utter impoverishment when it comes to English grammar:

These images were performed over the course of five years and are chronologically arranged to portray a questioning evolution. A journey of visual interventions that came together in interpretations and symbols. Each photograph is a projection of my imagination, inspired by feelings involving me with this world. [A world where] reality and time intertwine with the infinite. The images seek to portray this connection.

Correlations with Margritte and Ernst shift to the background and I am left thinking of Yves Klein–specifically Saut dans le vide. Whether or not this is an astute response, there is something of Klein’s brash dynamism in Troncoso’s work.

Honestly, it matters less to me how they work than that they do–quite well, in fact.

Source: aequivallere-blog

rawpix:

Jun3rd♥hide…†o/dream(Matthieu Soudet)★

Untitled/Ophelia 2010

Browsing this kid’s work makes me think I’d be better off selling my gear, taking a vow of silence and dedicating whatever remains of my life to asceticism.

A year from now I will still almost certainly be reeling in response to his Different Ways.

Then I find out he shoots with a Canon 5D mark II (GAH, digital!); that Photoshop was never invoked on this image and he remained unaware of any correlation with Hamlet or J. M. Millais’ painting of Ophelia until Flickr users inquired whether or not he intended such striking similarities.

How much is true and how much is personal mythology– I haven’t the foggiest notion, honestly. The answer doesn’t change fuck all, though– talent is talent is talent.

Source: thisghostship