[Leica] photography, gender roles, power structures, my daughter, and the beauty standard

[kcassidy at asc.upenn.edu (Kyle Cassidy)]

In light of recent events -- I feel compelled to speak out.
 
Photography has been a huge, possibly the largest, part of the definition of 
the American beauty standard almost since its creation. The Goudy ladies 
turned from pencil sketches to photographs as rapidly as the technology 
allowed. And the first stop that a young woman makes on her way to 
representing that American beauty standard is with a portfolio. Which means 
she visits a photographer, usually on the photographer's dime if she has any 
chance, or on her own if she doesn't. Of the millions of women in this 
country we might think of as "beautiful" -- only the smallest handful will 
ever actually be models (I really recommend Jurgen Teller's sad and 
beautiful photo book "go sees" in which he documents all the women who show 
up at his studio door for a year, hoping to be models). This leaves a trail 
of extremely attractive young women, desperate to BE what they see on 
magazine pages every day. As photographers we are lucky -- a little talent, 
dedication, and a lot of practice and most any photographer, no matter how 
over weight, out of shape, etc. can produce fashion images that grace 
magazine pages, billboards, and newspapers. You can study your way to being 
a skilled photographer, but you can't study your way to being beautiful. 
Here are careers made and hearts broken.
 
Somewhere beneath that over-layer of fashion and beauty photography there 
exists a sub strata that disturbs me to my core -- a species of photographer 
known in the industry as GWAC's (Guys With A Camera) -- they have a camera, 
they have two strobes, a pair of umbrellas, and a white seamless and they've 
made a personal hobby out of preying on the aspirations and hopes of young 
women who desperately _want_. On the one hand, you can view this as harmless 
hobbyism -- women who want to be models, men who want to be photographers, 
existing in a symbiotic relationship producing photographs -- and that 
actually often happens -- the Internet is filled with talented part-time 
models and skilled part-time photographers who produce mutually benefitial 
product every day and fuel sites like modelmayhem.com -- indeed, this is 
where the alt.fashion industry arose. But at the same time, there are 
photographers who use the modicum of skill they have to lure women into 
situations that are _not_ mutually beneficial, they produce hard drives 
filled with bikini photos, and topless shots of women in fedoras caressing 
Mamiya 645's, that will never see, nor were they ever meant to, see the 
light of publication -- they're "personal use" photos whose sole function is 
to get the photographer in a room with naked women. In my mind it's the most 
obscene kind of voyurism, based on lies, in which one party is coaxed into 
actively participating  in a role she's been mislead into thinking is in her 
benefit. It's like a dude ranch for women, made out of film and dreams. 
"Come to this shoot, get undressed, show your friends your photos -- they'll 
be jealous you're a bikini model and they're not." But nobody's warned them 
to beware of a "fashion" photographer who wants you to bring your own 
wardrobe. As I've been telling models for years -- once you're naked on the 
Internet, you're naked on the Internet _forever_. It's a decision worthy of 
a lot more contemplation than "Ooh! I get a CD of all the shots?!"
 
We see advertised now across the country fantasy "retreats" for 
photographers where models and lighting are provided and groups of the newly 
cameraed cluster around one another, jockying for position, snapping away at 
a topless vixen. Then they retire to the bar to discuss lens caps or set up 
"private" sessions with the models. This is no more "photography" than 
shooting an Ibus tethered to a stake is "hunting". It does not serve the 
greater cause of photography but instead emboldens an evil side that is 
unmotivated by talent, skill, and creativity and thrives on the emotional 
plunder of some by others, placing men in falsified positions of power.
 
I don't know what the solution is -- you can't teach good taste in a weekend 
Nikon workshop, but perhaps calling this particular monster genre out of the 
closet and pointing a finger at it is a start. 
 
 
Hopefully my daughter (if i had one) would have posessed a critical eye for 
portfolio review and never gotten involved, but there are millions of 
daughters who don't posess that, who've never been exposed to photography on 
a critical level and can't make those judgements. Support arts education in 
your schools and communities.
 
kc