[chimpwithagun]

Water settles to the lowest level and communities should strive for something a little higher.


Steve

What is "Higher" is debatable though. Is a "better" attitude towards nudity feeling more blasé or more prudish?


The point of my post is that people should stop complaining that their post got reported because:
1)This forum is private property subject to the owners' rules/opinions/whims and
2)In order to thrive, rules must be agreeable to the greater majority.


If you think this community should strive for something "higher", in MY opinion, something higher is a GREATER appreciation for nudity as an artistic concept that has been in man for as long as we can find evidence of our existence. YOUR opinion sounds like you would like to see more censorship. So, when the "water settles" your opinion and my opinion meet somewhere in the middle.


Water doesn't settle to the lowest level, it settles to the AVERAGE level. A community CANNOT thrive if striving for "something a little higher" because those who create the "higher" standards are doing so based on THEIR opinions. That's a hierarchy, not a community.


It's strange that although, fundamentally, our posts echo sentiments, you choose to quote me out of context and make it seem like I was speaking AGAINST the censorship when I was, in fact, AGREEING with it.

[normhead]

We have a "not safe for work" designation that could be viewed as exactly what this guy was looking for. There are as far as I know, no children or grannies, not because of any specific request... but there's no reason their couldn't be...

This issue is fraught with peril.

So much so that a guy like myself who speaks his mind, knows better than to pipe up. But just a few things....

The wording of the thread was so clumsy as to be offensive.

There's nothing wrong with nudity.

Most glamour shots even of nudes go way beyond nudity in their artistic value... if you've ever taken in the pictures taken in nudist colonies where people just walk around letting it all hang out, you know what I'm talking about.

As mentioned, whether or not the forum owner wishes to display that type of image, his his right alone. it's not a democracy, the rules are pretty clear.

I asked one of the guys here who posts in "Not Safe for Work" how he found models.. he replied " Most women want to be photographed nude." implied was "By a photographer who can do it tastefully and make them look good."

So for me those are the only issues. Are the photos taken with consent, (or even enthusiasm )? Does the model consent to public viewing of the image? Does the owner of the site agree to display that type of image.

If someone were to take the guy aside and teach him how to phrase things a little more delicately, I certainly have no issue with the concept. It's a well established part of photography that has been around since the beginning. The fact that some have moral standards that prevent them from enjoying such work ( as public policy, it's amazing how many who publicly decry glamour photography have extensive private collections) is neither here nor there. It's incredible to me, that people care what others do in the privacy of their homes. If a guy has plastered his whole basement with pin ups and centrefolds... how does that affect me? Does that make him a bad person, a person to be despised?

Until his actions can be shown to be harmful to other human beings, common sense would suggest he should be left alone. Until the posting of such pictures can be shown to be harmful to other human beings maybe folks shouldn't get their knickers in such a knot. Although educating someone in the correct, socially acceptable terms in which to clothe such a request might be in order. We have social standards that dictate how such requests should be phrased.

[Schraubstock]

whats your motivation

I felt your "idiot" comment was a bit strong and it needed a tongue in cheek reply.
But I can now see I failed.

[Imageman]

Not at all Schraubstock, my answer was tongue in cheek as well. Im sorry that wasn't clear.

I really do regard some photographers as idiots, and I don't think a strong condemnation of them is misplaced.

If you have a sitter who wants a portrait, the sitter invariably wants the photographer to demonstrate his skill by making the sitter look attractive.

Surely that's the purpose of a portrait. A man wants looks masculine and full of character and a lady wants to look feminine and attractive.

This means the portrait of a man benefits from a detailed and gritty rendering, emphasising his strength. The lady however does not want to look gritty and pock marked, she wants to look her best, and that usually means tasteful soft lighting and de-stressing of her defects.

A photographer who gets it monumentally wrong and makes a lady sitter who wants to look attractive look unattractive, is nothing short of an idiot and is I think incompetent. If the sitter was a paying customer, she would run a mile and tell everyone she meets never to go near the fool with the razor sharp lens and harsh lighting again. It would be the end of a budding career, so yes hes an idiot.

A grab shot of a street merchant or a lady hanging out washing is a different thing altogether. Its right and correct to capture all detail as in your shot. I in no way would suggest that you are anything other than a competent photographer, producing quality work.

I would add that I have produced portraits for difficult sitters. One lady who was not unattractive in her features but had some issues, I needn't go into what I did, but some heavy photoshopping was involved, I de-emphasised her defects and subtly trimmed her figure ever so slightly. I don't usually indulge in such heavy photoshopping, but she was very nervous about the result and needed this so I made an exception.

She was in love with the result and hadn't a clue how I had trimmed years from her, all she knew is she loved the image. That's what a portrait can be and we as photographers have to use our skills to give the sitter the very best image we can. She said she has not looked so good in a long time, she was genuinely very happy and the smile on her face was payment enough.

---

Last edited by Imageman; 08-28-2014 at 01:48 PM.