House Party

I spent a whole day working on this photo. I do believe it breaks my record for number of clones in one shot, previously set (if I'm not mistaken) by Harem no Jutsu, which featured seven clones. I had planned on using ten clones for this shot, but managed to squeeze in an eleventh at the last minute. I used the nonstandard layout of the apartment to my advantage, although I got quite the workout running back and forth across the length of the apartment for those farthest clones. Anyone who doesn't think photography is work, is clearly not a photographer. Thinking back on some of my earliest clone shots, it was just point and shoot. But that was seven years ago, when I was still green, and excited just to see a representation of myself in a picture. Nowadays, I'm determined to take pictures with interesting poses, that show off the model's body in the most flattering way. Which is particularly hard, when you're a self-portrait photographer. But I've gone into all that before.

I started out with the intention of shooting all of the clones in such a manner as to obscure any so-called "hardcore nudity" - if only just to gain the advantage of potentially being able to show off the shot in wider contexts, but after eleven clones, I started running out of pose ideas, and I didn't want to have them all looking the same. I haven't lost any of my enthusiasm for those "hardcore nudity" shots (which will be obvious to anyone following my work), but there's something to be said for the "implied" or "near" nude approach. The suggestion is thrilling, and where you perhaps can't go exposing yourself wholesale in the public square, you might just be able to get away with drawing a larger audience to a chaster exhibition, while still managing to be titillating. It's one of those strategic tricks where if you go too far, they'll put you in the "adult" category and prevent as many people as they can from seeing your work, but even if you have to compromise on your vision a little to reach mainstream audiences, it'll just be that much more effective in potentially opening new minds.

Not that so-called "self-censorship" will ever be a legitimate substitute for free speech in my mind, but I consider it another tool to toss in my toolbox, that has its time and place. There's no reason whatsoever that the following two images can't both exist simultaneously, just as long as the one isn't necessarily precluding the existence of the other: