Stark Winter

These shots are actually from last January. Sometimes I'll take a picture that I feel has promise, but I won't be a hundred percent satisfied with it. So I'll stash it away, to give myself more time to think on it, and a chance to maybe go back at some point and try the shot again, to see if I can improve upon it. I may still yet, but it's been a year, so I think that even if I did, it would be more like revisiting a theme (which I like to do) than setting up a reshoot.

As it is, these shots may just be outtakes, but I do believe there's something in them that makes them worth sharing. Whether it's the stark lighting of the on-camera flash that leaves nothing to the imagination, the contours of my body, or the contrast between the full body exposure and the frigid view of a snowy winterland through the windows just beyond...

I have to trust my artistic instinct sometimes. I don't psychoanalyze the reasons why I like what I like, or when I think something is interesting. I mean, I do - but when I'm sitting down philosophizing, not every single time I have to make a decision about what's good and what's not. If I feel that there's something in an image, I'll run with it. Doesn't matter if it's something compositional, more conceptual, purely sexual, or a complicated combination of things. "Shoot 'em all, and let the censor sort 'em out!"

I'd hate to have that voice of self-censorship in my head, second guessing my instincts, telling me, "that's too sexual," or some such. There can be a lot of artifice in art, but often times it's strongest when it's reflecting the truth - particularly truths that people don't like to confront. That's when art serves a purpose beyond just being pretty pictures.

But I do try to present those truths in ways that I would hope makes them more accessible. Yes, we are animals with a raw sexual desire - and you can demonstrate that through vulgarity. But desire should be appealing, not repulsive. That is, in fact, what a lot of people are recoiling from. Well, I'd like to invite them to look again, and show them the link between eroticism and beauty.