Sunday, April 29, 2012

PHOTO SHOOTS THAT GO AWRY (REVISED)


Gee, it's scary to think about photo shoots that go awry, that just don't have any juice. Maybe it's especially scary in adult media which is supposed to be about passion and lack of inhibition. 


What if a model has a bad day? What if the photographer has a bad day? What if they both have a bad day at the same time?


I'm guessing that's what happened here (above). The shoot wasn't working out so the photographer decided to make a joke out of it. 


Fortunately this model had a knack for comedy.


The horrible truth is that not every model is photogenic. This girl (above) probably got the job because she looks good in real life, but the truth is that she doesn't photograph. The camera doesn't love her. What do you do when you get a subject like that? Do photographers have a Plan B that enables them to save the shoot?


It's a strange but true fact that some women with good bodies (above) just aren't that interesting when naked, at least not in pictures. Here's (above) a girl taking her clothes off and there's no emotional impact. It's just information.

Apparently nudity is a state of mind. In order to read as naked a model has to feel naked. She has to project a feeling of vulnerability or of being in a special state where ordinary rules don't apply.


Or maybe I'm wrong. This girl (above) seems vulnerable enough, but the nakedness only barely reads. Why is that?

 The use of flat lighting and awkward composition seems deliberate. I wish I knew the story behind this.



Once again, the same model (above). Now this is a really scary picture. This girl's good looking, but she's completely devoid of sex appeal. That's unusual. Almost every human being and even some department store mannequins exude some degree of sexuality. Whatever subtle cues make up that quality are completely missing here. I can only imagine the panic the photographer felt when he realized that he had a rogue model on his hands.

I suppose the poor guy continued to shoot anyway, in the hope that some unusual truth
would come out of it. It does sometimes. Women like Veronica Lake can be sexy even when they're cold but, really, how often does that happen?



My guess is that lots of otherwise unsuccessful shoots were saved by alcohol, which has the ability to reset emotions in some people.


It's risky, though. 


Sometimes weird pictures (above) can save a shoot. Actually, this shoot didn't need saving. The model succeeds in being sexy in an odd way.


Well, that's it. So far as I can tell, the human body is still the most popular subject in the visual arts.

My apology to the model I called sexless, if it turns out that I was wrong. Sometimes the camera adds or subtracts in unpredictable ways.






6 comments:

  1. Even in the worst economies the adult industry does fine business. It fulfills a need that's never satiated. A good business plan!

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  2. I love your irony Uncle Edie.
    But still, I think Channel Preston is a lady.

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  3. I never thought Uncle Eddie was being ironic, but instead rather sincere. Have I been missing the point all along?

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  4. Anonymous5:05 PM

    Most of these women are super ugly, but porn is porn and as long as there are women around, there will always be an adult market for pornography.

    Eddie, since I accidentally hurt someone's feelings on their Tumblr blog and didn't mean to, like I said some blunt things and the person took it the wrong way and out of context and thought I was bashing him personally, do you have any advice on how to prevent this from happening. I made another friend of mine mad a month ago for the same reason. It's so hard to tell when people are trolling for laughs on the Internet or if they are being sincere.

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  5. Auralynn, de Wolf: I can't stand irony, and I wish I hadn't tried it here. I'm not good at it. What I wrote here sounded like ridicule, and that wasn't at all what I had in mind.

    I just thought it was funny that some photo shoots go awry, and turn out to be disappointingly banal. The poor photographer continues to shoot anyway, maybe in the hope that some unusual insight will come out of it, but I'll bet that it seldom does.

    I think I'll reprint this commentt in the post.

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  6. Auralyn, deWolf: Come to think of it, I changed my mind. I'll just rewrite the post so I can get rid of the irony.

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