hughesa

I put this little manifesto up on my flickr profile...

I am a collector... which is to say, a member of a category which is the subject of some controversy. I have to admit, I don't get the controversy. My collecting has, as far as I can tell, no impact whatsoever on the production and consumption of photography. If it has no impact, then it is has no harmful impact.

[Note that at Deviantart, faving has an impact -- it raises the profile of the faved photo.  This can be expected to be a good thing for the producer of the photo.  On the other hand, if crap gets faved, then crap builds up in photostreams ranked by most faves... Luckily, I don't fave crap!]

In the unlikely event that my favorites are inspected, perhaps they might provide some inspiration to skilled photographers. I take it that this would be a good thing. Here is a possibility for how this could happen: Suppose that I fave a photo. Its producer might gather information about some of what makes her photo is good by seeing how it is similar to my other faves.

I could imagine that some collections (mainly porn collections) might place certain photographs in a context their producers do not like -- a skeezy context. Perhaps this would take what is a pleasure for its creator, and transform it into something skeezy -- i.e. unpleasant. (Imagine that a porn collector adds photographs of my own children to his collection... ugh.) This would be a cost, but I suspect that my collection does not place any photos in a skeezy context. [Though I might be be persuaded otherwise. Give it a shot, if you'd like.]

I am interested only in what seem to me good photographs. Often enough, the good photos that capture my attention are photos of nude women. But I don't see how this entails a skeezy context. (Certainly, the producers of nudes cannot reasonably object to nude photography as such.) Good photos (often/always?) reveal something beautiful and interesting. People are often beautiful and interesting. To me, women are often especially beautiful and interesting. So, to me, good photography that takes women as its subject, is especially engaging.

Moreover, since clothing performs such important social functions, nude photography tends to have a kind of interesting abstract aesthetic content. For example, what is an everyday thing and object of perception -- the body -- is transformed into something not everyday by its being lit and photographed naked. For another example, the circumstances of its production are often a salient part of a nude's aesthetic value. The model is a performer and the nude model performs an especially fraught kind of craft. Nudes are a record of that performance and can be interesting in something like the way it is interesting to watch Philip Seymour Hoffman act.

Finally, I hope to produce my own photography some day. In the meantime, I cannot do this; but I can enjoy and be educated by some of the excellent work available here.

To everyone I follow and fave: Thank you for your skilled labor. You produce something which makes the world a better -- more pleasant, more interesting -- place. To those who block collectors: please reconsider your position.

There are two things that I like in photographs: (i) features of pictured subject and (ii) features of the picturing of the subject.  A photograph must be good with respect to both of these things to satisfy my taste.

Let me say a little about the first thing -- the quality a photograph might take from the features of the pictured subject.  At first, one thinks: things (broadly construed to include persons) can be interesting to look at (generally this is, for me, a matter beauty).  The job of a photograph is picture the interesting thing, thereby making it available for appreciation.  One imagines that the thing possesses its interesting feature independently of the photographing of it.

But this first thought is not quite right...

A pictured person is often enough _performing_ in some way.  Thus, for example, the subject of a photograph might be a performance of some sort -- as for example, in journalistic photos of athletic performances.  In this case, the athlete is a subject of the photo, but her performance is also a subject of the photo.  This is quite enough to make photos of persons especially interesting: performances, exercises of agency, are interesting.

However, it sometimes seems to me that there is an additional kind of role played by performance in the aesthetics of photography.  And it is why the first thought is not quite right.  One reason why people are interesting subjects is that the picturing of the person and the pictured subject are not independent.  

The aesthetic character of the pictured performance can partly derive from the fact that it is a pictured performance... put another way: part of the pictured performance _is_ being pictured in this or that way.  Here is another way of putting it: a pose can be an unpictured way of producing a subject to be pictured (Fred reveals his muscled arm or whatever by posing), but the posing can itself be part of what is pictured.

A model need not merely provide an interesting subject, but can provide an interesting subject insofar as he or she is photographed.  Here, then, the pictured subject can possess an interesting feature because it is pictured and not independently of it.

I wish I could be more concrete.  Aiae's self-portraits seem to have this quality... as do But33's... Actually, now that I think about it, it seems that this is a quality that often attaches (for me) to self-portraits, especially.  Mirjan Rooze's self-portraits have this quality for me.  And not just self-portraits; mehmeturgut's portraits sometimes have it.  

Johannes Schwab's nudes often have an impersonal feel to me, in part because the posing itself is a bit harshly presented.  But, here with delightful comedic effect, is a pictured posing:

joschwab.deviantart.com/art/Gr…

Dudes.  I love a nude as much as the next guy, but browsing the people and portraits has become a task that involves wading through great heaps of pornographic crap.  Don't get me wrong: porn can be pretty cool.  But I want to see _good_ photography.

Perhaps it is easy to confuse pornographic and artistic nudes... Lord knows, it is hard to cook up a theoretical explanation of the difference between the two kinds of nude.  But then again nearly any interesting difference is hard to explicitly account for.  But I think that it is especially easy to confuse pornographic and non-pornographic nude photography.

This is for the simple reason that the fundamental response by which I identify a good photograph is this: Does it make me think "wow"?  Does it fill me with awed pleasure?  

As it happens, naked people sometimes (OK... quite often) fill me with awed pleasure and so it will happen that pictures of naked people will fill me with awed pleasure.  But, such pictures will succeed in filling me with awed pleasure largely independently of their value as art.  Perhaps some photographers suffer from this problem, as well, and mistake their pictures of naked people with art.

It is too bad that people are about the most interesting subjects for photographic representation... If I were to seriously pursue art photography, I'd consider _not_ photographing people (especially naked people) so as to avoid suffering from the illusion that what I have produced is art, when it is really pornography.  ...which is too bad, b/c artistic nudes really are a wonderful form of art...  

but... jeeze... wide angle shots of naked girls, standing on their tip-toes among colored rocks, waving scarfs in the air... This is supposed to be art?!

It is sometimes claimed that an audience makes a mistake in finding artistic nudes arousing.  They respond to an artistic nude wrongly, if they respond with arousal, even if it is only quite mild and mixed with other emotions.  Perhaps, then, the distinction between artistic and pornographic nude photography is simply in whether it would be appropriate for a viewer to find herself aroused by a photograph.

I find it very hard to take seriously that one ought never respond to non-pornographic nudes with arousal.  Though I agree that it would a misuse of such images to use them as one uses pornography.  So I want to begin thinking about this.

Why or in what way might it be appropriate or inappropriate to respond to a photo with arousal?  If you're attending a dinner party hosted by nuns, and catch a glimpse of a pornographic photo, you might find yourself aroused.  Of course, this arousal would be inappropriate in one way: getting worked up would be rude.

My best guess about how arousal might be appropriate to pornographic representation is that such arousal would be a realization of the goal of pornographic representation.  Pornographic representation serves a purpose, and arousal is a constitutive part of realizing that purpose.  So becoming aroused by pornographic representations is appropriate in the same way that feeling sleepy is an appropriate response to sleeping pills -- it fulfills a purpose.

But this explanation does not rule out responding with arousal to non-pornographic representations.  The previous paragraph explains the appropriateness of arousal with respect to pornography, but it does not explain why arousal might inappropriate with respect to non-pornographic nudes.  After all, just because it is the main purpose of a sleeping pill to bring about sleepiness, it doesn't follow that becoming sleepy by other means is inappropriate.

You might think this: While pornographic representations serve one kind of purpose, artistic nudes serve a different purpose and, because they serve this purpose, arousal is an inappropriate response.  But just because something serves a purpose it doesn't follow that one cannot use it in ways that fail to achieve that purpose.  The purpose of a hammer is to drive nails, but a hammer might make a fine paperweight.

So here is a recipe for figuring this out:

1: Figure out what the purposes of different kinds of photographic representations are: Relevantly, is the purpose of this photograph to elicit arousal or not?
2: Figure out what determines what the purposes are:  Is it the intentions of the photographer?  Is it the intentions of the consumer?  Is it the social context of photos of that sort?  Is it some complex mix of these things?
3: Figure out how the purpose of a photo might not only make a response appropriate, but also make other responses inappropriate.

Figuring out how to answer the questions from above will be Very Difficult.  I suspect, then, that maybe the thing to do will be to begin by introspecting a little.  What are the differences and similarities in _my_ responses to pornographic and non-pornographic nudes?  There is a sense in which I respond to artistic nudes with arousal.  However, the arousal is of a different kind than the kind I experience viewing pornographic representations.  What is this difference?  ...is it milder?  ...is it less single-mindedly erotic?  ...is it more respectful?  ...is it more intellectual?  It typically provokes different ...um... physiological responses.  What about you?

So I share the widespread anxiety about the extent to which the photography you get when you browse the photos of people is pornographic.  Not that I have any beef with pornography necessarily.  However, many such photos are devoid of merit.  What I mean is this: their appeal consists only in the erotic appeal of their subjects.  Of course, now I feel like something of a hypocrite, since my collection of favorites is totally dominated by pictures of beautiful women, many of them nude.  Further, it is undeniable that part of the pleasure of any nude is an erotic pleasure inspired by the subject.  Is there a deep difference, then, between pornographic nudes and so-called artistic nudes?

Here is something that I think is relevant: photographic art has a kind of duality to it.  There is a distinction between the form of a photographic representation and its content.  Though this isn't really quite right, think of the form of the photo as its geometrical features and its content as... well... its other features.  Some of its value rests in the geometrical features of the photograph itself.  Some of its value rests in the geometrical features of the photographed scene.  Some of its value consists in the non-geometrical features of the photographed scene.  A good photograph will be valuable in both of these respects.  

Perhaps all I mean by "porn" is photography that in virtue of its singleminded focus on the non-geometrical features of the photographed scene (look here is a vagina!) neglects the formal.  Maybe porn is porn (and not art) because it is all about the content.  Maybe pornographic representation is simply bad art (because aesthetically incomplete).   

But, of course, there are artists here that I admire greatly for the non-formal aspects of their photography.  ~But33, for example, takes beautiful photos that are, moreover, funny.  Or ~marciedip, for another example, has such playful photos.  So one mustn't be a fetishist about form, elevating it over content.

Moreover, and here I am feeling confessional, I find non-pornographic representations of the female form hotter than pornographic representations.  I mean something like this: a non-pornographic representation makes me love the model a little bit in a way that pornographic representation doesn't.  

Some Examples:

So here is a nude that is quite formal:

josemanchado.deviantart.com/ar…
"Salvation", *josemanchado

OTOH, here is a nude that is full of non-formal excellence:

solarstorm.deviantart.com/art/…
"Just Clownin' a round", SolarStorm

Sometimes non-pornographic hotness is a matter of what is hidden, as in the following:

believe-hope.deviantart.com/ar…
"Agitated", believe-hope

Other times it is not:

missanthrope13.deviantart.com/…
"Follow Me", missanthrope13

"Follow Me" is fairly direct... and yet... there is something about it that doesn't seem pornographic to me.

OK... then.  I am still confused about how to think about these photographs.