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

[manolito at videotron.ca (EPL)]

Kyle Cassidy wrote:
> 
> 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 a!
> nd 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 ge!
> t 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

Kyle, I had been waiting for you to weigh in. In fact, since this thread
began, I have been meaning to shoot you an e-mail for your comments.

On the surface, your work seems to cover subject matter on the fringes of
propriety. However, having worked with you on that day with the Dalai Lama,
I felt instinctively that you were a man not just with a camera but with an
ethical standard.

Thank you for your post here.

Photography is by nature voyeuristic. The person with the camera on the
scene, in the situation, appears to -- or imagines that (s)he --
represent(s) all of the rest of us who are elsewhere and who eventually view
the images. This work is, finally, a kind of sacred trust.

What Shell was doing was pure exploitation. I bet he knew it too. His
pictures were cheesy, his spirit corrupt, his actions -- perhaps temporarily
-- brought our pursuit into disrepute.

Good riddance.

Emanuel