I absolutely love your essay as I will never understand the minds of the women that pose for me and undrape. Undrape is a term that was used in the time I taught in Vancouver’s Emily College of Art. I first photographed my wife nude with our first daughter in 1969 and I have been doing this since. Until journalism died in Vancouver and other parts I was a gainfully employed magazine photographer and writer. Now I am obsolete, redundant & retired. But I keep taking pictures in my little studio. You must not patterns with the people who photograph. They start with the body as a bodyscape (don’t bodies look like sand dunes? they might say) then they include the face. Then they have a problem when the photography becomes or feels erotic. I have rules (which I used to impart to my students) which was never to look at their models in such a way as making them uncomfortable. To look in detail I told them to do so through the camera. Touching was only permited on a stray facial hair with the little finger! Anything else you brought a mirror. A few of my subjects wrote of the experience for my blog.
Here are some: https://medium.com/photographs-words/i-wrote-she-wrote-80950d101670
I found in my experience that as soon as the face was in the picture I began to think erotic. I attempted pornography and quickly realized that pornography is something done in bad taste. I could not do it. As I have aged, and I am about to be 76 I find that Eros now includes some clothing and that my sense of the erotic is more cerebral (definitely above the waist) and subtle. But I have a problem finding women who will pose for me when I explain my motive and purpose. What do you think?
