I shoot nudes. Pretty much everybody who has ever seen my work, who is my friend, and even most of my immediate family know this. I believe that what I do is my art form and I enjoy expressing my creativity. It took me a little while to find my style though. I prefer a more sensual, elegant type of “sexiness” to the smiling, flirty style and I think the former suits me better. But along my journey I’ve shot a ton of different styles. I look back on some of it now and wrinkle my nose a little bit at some of what I did, not because I was talked into doing “bad” things or whatever, but because I just don’t care for some of it. I might even go so far as to say some of it was a mistake. Not a huge one, mind you, but stuff I wouldn’t shoot now. And I believe that’s okay. I believe that as long as I shot everything willingly, and I did, that it was my own choice and I was exploring myself and my art form. That’s part of growing as a creative and an artist. You explore things. You do things and sometimes you love them and sometimes you look back and you’re not so fond of them. And before anyone misunderstands… I still like or even love almost everything I’ve ever shot. Of course I can see flaws or things I would change and of course I feel my more recent work is better work (as far as my parts are concerned), but I’m not ashamed of any of it. And you can go ahead and wish mercy on the soul of anyone who tells me I should be because they’re going to need it. Anyway, moving on…
I am extremely put off by the “witch hunt” mentality that seems to surface around photographers who shoot nude or, horror of horrors, erotic content. I’ve seen photographers who were creepy or who were inappropriate being called out or whatnot, but instead of focusing on the inappropriate behavior, everyone jumps on the fact that they shoot nudes or erotic content. That is not the problem! The problem is their behavior! I have posed nude for a whole bunch of photographers. A lot of them were men, some much older than me, a few younger, and never, ever has one of them molested me, said gross things to me while we shooting, etc. What this means to me is not that models never get molested or that they never have gross things said to them (because sadly those things do happen), but that it’s not normal behavior or general behavior for nude or erotic photographers or even photographers in general. Bad behavior is bad behavior and it has to do with that person. Don’t let a few bad apples make you negatively judge a whole group. Many of the nude and erotic photographers I know are some of the nicest, most supportive people I’ve ever met. They don’t pressure models, but they are happy to shoot nudes and erotic work with models who are also willing to shoot those things. I can stand nude in front of them talking before or after a shoot and they don’t act any different than they do when I’m clothed. I often undress in front of them and they never say anything rude and they don’t stare.
So please don’t judge these good people on the actions of a few icky ones. And if a photographer who shoots nudes or erotic work does something stupid, remember that the person did something stupid, not the group, and that there are plenty of photographers out there who work with nude models all the time who never do anything wrong.