The Photographer Photographed
Sunday, December 11, 2016
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| Photograph - Nora Patrich |
As a
photographer I do not understand these selfie times. I hate having my own
photograph taken but when I do allow it I find it almost liberating not having
to think how to compose the photograph. I just sit there but I am willing to
take the instructions of the photographer. I do enjoy including myself sometimes when my subjects look into a mirror.
In the
early 90s I received a phone call from friend writer William Gibson. He was all
excited about a porn magazine called Future Sex. He told me that few could
object to it at the editor was a woman and that her name was Lisa Palac. It
seems that her boyfriend was the editor of a well regarded mens’style magazine.
In short order I sold a portrait of Gibson for Issue 4 of the magazine for a story called Test Dicking the
Force Feedback Vagina. I thought that would be my first and last contribution
to a porn magazine. I received a phone call from Palac telling me that Gibson
had informed her of my penchant for erotic photographs. She asked me to submit
one. So, yes I have contributed twice (Issue 5) for that short-lived porn
magazine.
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| Future Sex - Issue 5 |
As I get
older I have not changed my focus on what I photograph. There is rarely a what and most often it is a who. My game is the photography of
people.
I have
lived in Canada since 1975 and because of it I find that I am politically
correct when I can and when I shoot I think of the possible repercussions of my
click. As an
example of this Canadian attitude I can cite my trips to my native city of
Buenos Aires and arguing with my nephews as to why there are still ads for
toothpaste featuring young women in bikinis. The scoff at this and question my
manhood!
Sometime in
2000 I participated in a three-person show featuring the female nude. Unlike
the other two photographers my photographs showed the faces of the women. In
Vancouver there is a tradition (I am ambivalent on it) of having a guest book
for comments. I received several, “Thank you for showing us the faces.” It
seems that many of the women of the time objected to the idea of objectifying a
woman’s body by showing parts.
Now with
the fierce advent of the internet and social media posting a nude on line and
showing a face can have dire consequences. In the past those nudes ended up as
contact sheets, slides or negatives in a file in a dark corner of the
photographer’s home. That is now history although as I write this I am surrounded
by many all-metal and old-fashioned file cabinets full of the photographic
output of my life.
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| Photograph - Juan Manuel Sánchez |
I have
curiously thought of how as human beings we are wired for certain tendencies.
Our built-in self-preservation makes suicide a difficult task for just about
anybody. One must think what will push someone into that corner. The same goes
with the idea of a man my age, 74, to look at anybody under 20 with Jimmy
Carter’s lust in my heart. The body rebels on that.
Thus at
this age of mine I am interested in the faces and bodies of women much older
and closer to my own. It must be built-in, I believe.
I have as a
man never understood fully man’s (as in the male of the human species) our
almost obsession with a woman’s breasts and particularly with the empty space
between them. I have cited before in other blogs that American photographer
Bert Stern pioneered a special lighting combination to enhance cleavage for
Cosmopolitan Magazine.
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| With Juan Manuel Sánchez - Photograph - Nora Patrich |
I have
never understood and more so now social media’s disapproval in showing female
nipples while ignoring that of the male’s.I have
explained before my suspicion that many men (as many as women) have or not have
sensitivity in that area.I have a Vancouver friend, Vince Hemingson who places photographs of undraped women in Facebook and has a special tool he invented that whisks away those nasty nipples.
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| Acapulco, Guerrero - Photograph taken by Acapulco Chief of the Federal Police Licenciado Felipe Ferrer Junco |
And going
down to the paises bajos (the Lower
Countries) as my grandmother called that body area below the belt I must
confess that I don’t think I am the only man (as in the male of the species but
at the same time understanding that a gay man may object) who sees the male
sexual organ as something lacking in total beauty.
As a
healthy male who admires beauty and elegance I think that one of the most
beautiful objects is the ancient Chinese spoon. When I look at one now, I think
that a Swedish designer might have gone back in time to create that marvelous
streamlined shape. I think of the same of the female nether parts. I think that
when swimming under water the woman presents a sleeker, less prone to water resistance
than a man, particularly if the woman in question is daintily equipped above
the waist.
