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

[bjq1 at mac.com (Bernard Quinn)]

Kyle,

Well said. Well thought out. Very true. Good for you.

Barney

On Nov 4, 2007, at 2:08 PM, 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 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
>
>
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