So JimmyD (http://twitter.com/pgshooter) tweeted the following article From Polanski to “Big Love”: Hollywood’s Twisted View of Child Sex Abuse by Marci A. Hamilton.  Some of the article I agreed with, some I didn’t.  I read a few of her other things and again, some I agreed with and some I didn’t.

This post isn’t about any particular view that she and I share or differ on.  It’s about her apparent non-desire to communicate with her readers.  There is no comment system.  I could not find an e-mail address anywhere on the site.

I, and many others, especially of my generation and younger, have come to expect the ability to interact with content creators.  Be it a musician, photographer, writer, etc., the idea that you’re finished once you’ve created something is very much a last century idea.  I know that sometimes in the blogs I follow the comments are more interesting and informative than the original work.  I’m not saying that to be detrimental to the creators.  The original work is generally outstanding, but the ability to question, appreciate and criticize, especially when paired with the different views, experience and knowledge from people all over the world, makes it better.

Creators that I can’t communicate with seem to be saying “This is what you should think (do, look at, listen to).” rather than “This is what I think (do, look at, listen to).”  It’s the difference between a lecture of 300 students, and a discussion with the professor at his/her home.  It’s the difference between radio and iTunes.  It’s the difference between being passive and being active.

And I would much rather live in a world of active people, who are part of the conversation, than passive people who do exactly as they’re told.

Sydney Max being active

The Biocore Prairie that is.  So this is the first set from my shoot with Rebecca on August 22nd.  There are a LOT more sets from this shoot.  We stared shooting at around 7:30pm.  We planned to start an hour earlier, but someone was late.  She made up for it though because we took our last picture at 3am.

To find out more about the Biocore Prairie just click the link above.  It’s a really amazing place, along with the rest of the Lakeshore Preserve.  I just discovered most of it last year.  I’d been out to Picnic Point for the first time about 6 or 7 years ago, and have visited a few times since then, but I’d never explored the other direction.  There are some amazing places that I’ll be showcasing more of, especially for University Nudes.

And now on to Rebecca.

This is the very first picture I took for the day. It's rare that the first turns out so well.

I love the mood in this one. And the coloring looks almost 70's film like.

If your monitor is not calibrated correctly this one may not look good to you.

After the sun had gone behind the trees on the horizon Rebecca climbed the tree to get more light.

My next post will be either Sydney Max defying gravity, or Jason my newest University Nude.

This is the second set with Sydney Max.  Again, these were shot on August 20th.  The weather this day was difficult from a photographic standpoint.  The temperature was good, but the sun kept moving in and out of the clouds.  In one frame the sky looks like it’s about to storm, in the next frame it’s a beautiful summer day.  To try to compensate for that we moved to the chairs under a small tree.

So I’m starting something new with this post.  In the past I would wait until I was done editing all the photos from a shoot.  And while it was nice to know I had them all done, sometimes it would take a while.  I wouldn’t be able to post as often, and when I did I think some of the pictures didn’t get as much attention.

Now I’m going to post as I get sets done.  I consider a set to be one outfit or one location, from a shoot.  Today the set is Sydney Max at the Red Gym on the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus.  We shot these on August 20th.  I have three more sets from that day, and not to give to much away, but in the second set she defies gravity.

This one is my favorite.

So I’ve been wanting to do some pictures at night.  The colors, the locations, it seemed like it would make really good pictures.  And it did.

Exactly one month ago I sent a message to Trinity on MM asking if she was available for a shoot on short notice.  She wasn’t available for the day I asked but the day before had just come open for her.  I wanted to start work on my legs series and she had some ideas for it and other things as well.

The picture below is one of the most “fashion” images I have ever shot.

 Then I set up some red filter lights and did some back lighting.

 

 

 And I have to show this one with Benton.

 

 

You can find more shots in the gallery below.

So for the last few weeks I’ve been seeing a post on Craigslist about an art show at Cafe Montemarte.  The theme is  7 Deadly Sins.  So first I looked up what the seven sins actually were, and then tried to find some of my photos that illustrated them.  I didn’t think that any of my work would actually be chosen, but it didn’t take me long and it was fun looking through some of my older work.  I submitted five images, and three were chosen.  You can see them below and at the show starting Monday March 23rd.

"Wrath" Allison in Mike's basement.

"Greed" My nephew Leo

"Lust" Tamara on my coffee table

So, in November I put a casting call out for a lingerie shoot.  I’ve written about it below in the post about Nicollette, how I want to put a photo up on the first wall you see when you enter my apartment.  Tamara said she’d do it on the first day I put up my casting.  We set up our first shoot for two weeks later.  Then something came up so we rescheduled until after her finals.  That day rolls around, huge snowstorm.  Buses and cabs are all running late, and she had a flight to catch.  Now she’s out of the country for a month so we don’t talk again till January.  She has a lot of stuff to do with the semester starting so we set something up for February 6th.  Of course then she finds out that her Professor wants her in the lab that day.  We reschedule again for the 15th.  Of course I didn’t look at the calendar right and I already had someone scheduled for the 15th. So we push it back again and finally on February 21st we get to take some pictures.

I think they turned out great.  Well worth the wait.  The shoot didn’t go exactly as I expected.  I never asked, and wasn’t planning on doing any nudes.  But we did some, and of the final images below more than half have some nudity.  It was really hard to pick which pictures I would edit.  There were so many good ones.  Tamara has a lot of poses.  Normally I only have to go through a photo set twice.  The first to take out the bad pictures, not focused, blinking, bad lighting, etc.  And the second to choose which photos I want to edit.  Usually on a second pass I can narrow a set down to thirty to forty pictures.  On this set I had over ninety my second time through.  I had to do a third culling to get it down to the final 31, which doubled when converted to black and white.

This is the type of shot I envisioned when setting up this shoot.

I think this one is very Pin-up.

I think this shows just enough

Click the images below to see the full size images.

I heard that phrase a number of years ago.  They were talking about guys who wore glasses.  Some men think of glasses as a handicap, others as an asset.  In the particular story the gentleman had an eye infection and couldn’t wear his normal contact lenses.  So when he went out that night he wore glasses and asked women if he looked better with or without them.  Great way to start a conversation with something that may not be ideal.

It popped into my head in response to a thread on MM.  This thread is about one young woman’s difficulties in how people respond to her nude modeling.  In this particular thread it was her parent’s responses to her first real nude shoot.  Many of the things they said to her would apply to any number of people, from other family members, coworkers, and the general public.

And they’re all wrong.

I’m not gonna refute everything that’s in the thread.  You can go read that yourself and just use common sense.  What I am gonna do is to relate this back to the title of the post.  One of the things that her parents said was

No one will want to marry you.

Now, I’m sure that there are some people in this world that would not marry such a woman.  They would not even entertain the thought of marriage if they knew or even suspected that such an event had taken place. That any woman who would do that is morally bankrupt.  I don’t agree with the people in this group, but they have their beliefs and they’re following them.  I respect that.  Much more than the next group.

The hypocrites.  They’re okay with female nudity.  Until it’s their daughter, or their fiance.  They don’t mind seeing your girlfriend, or your wife naked, but theirs is “special” only for them.  These are the guys I like the least.  They’re usually jealous and insecure.  So many women I’ve photographed want to do nudes, but don’t because of guys in this group.

The next group we’ll call the apathetic.  They don’t really care either way.  They may tend to be slightly positive about it.  They might get to see the woman naked before having sex with her, which is usually a plus.  On the other hand if the woman hasn’t posed nude, it’s not gonna bother them at all.

I really don’t know what to call the last group.  Why don’t we call them people like me.  Nudity is important to me.  And not just sexually though that is a nice side benefit.  All of the women that I’ve met who have been nude in front of a camera are women that I want to know outside of the photography industry.  They share many of the same traits like confidence, intelligence, creativity and a willingness to try new things.  I don’t know if they had these traits before they posed nude or they developed them after posing.  Perhaps it’s some of both that feeds back on each other.  Either way these women are better than the general population.  Which is why I won’t become involved with a woman that isn’t willing to pose nude.

Now, I don’t expect a woman to strip right after I get her phone number.  And I’m not going to rule a woman out because she hasn’t posed yet.  But if she’s downright against it we won’t be spending much time together.  If the relationship progresses, and she hasn’t been in front of my camera sans clothing, then her finger will be sans ring.  That’s right.  I won’t marry a woman UNLESS she poses nude.  I would hope she enjoys it as much as I do.  I don’t expect her to have a career in nude photography, unless she wants to.  And if she only wants to pose for me, that’s fine.  But I’m not gonna stop her if she wants to pose for others.

And now we’re finally back to the first phrase at the top of this post.  What you can’t fix, you feature.  I can’t change the people in the other three groups.  But I can show them a better way to act.  So besides the personal benefits of having a wife willing to pose nude, I’m hoping that my example may help others.  And, just to show that I’m not a hypocrite, here’s some photos of me.

Josh Nude

Josh Nude

Well, not really.  The “bride” and “groom” only met about two hours before I took the first picture.  The “bride” is Alex, the “groom” is Matt, and make up and hair were done by Joelle.  We met at the top of State street, then headed into the capitol.    We shot for just over an hour, ending the shoot outside.  We actually almost got locked out.  I wasn’t watching the clock that closely and as we were walking back inside so Alex could take her dress off a security guard stopped us.  He let her change and then we left.  I think the picture below is my favorite.