A Modern Primitive

The true definition of "naked while dressed"

This is a theme I'd wanted to shoot for my project last year, but I was so backed up, I didn't get around to it before the winter set in, and then I wanted to wait until the world became green again. It's actually a revisiting of a theme I shot for my original Daily Nudes project back in 2008 (albeit indoors), which was itself a personal tribute to my memory of the first time I ever appeared nude on camera (footage of which unfortunately no longer exists).

This outfit is so much fun because, although it marginally functions as clothing, it's really about as minimalistic as you can get. And although early clothes may have been fashioned from animal pelts, in the absence of stitching and form-fitting, it really feels more like an ABC outfit. The pelts are literally just draped over my waist (barely covering me, at that), so it's the bare minimum coverage and I still feel quite naked. Moreover, from a photographic perspective, my quite nearly naked body is emphasized (and certainly, being fit makes these images that much more spectacular) even as the pelts effectively cover anything that would otherwise render these images "indecent".

This one looks kind of vulgar in hindsight...

I tried to strike some primitive, animalistic poses to bring the theme home. However, the environment wasn't perfectly uncultivated (I held off on cutting the grass to make the scene look more wild, but I couldn't do anything about that fence in the background), and I wasn't sure if my grooming practices would be anachronistic (even though my hair is pretty natural, I think that if I were living in the wild, I'd probably cut it with a rock or something, just so it wouldn't be a tripping hazard or whatever while hunting tigers; and my body is awfully smooth and pale for a full-grown male living out exposed to the elements). So I settled on the theme of the modern primitive.

Do you like it? I'm gonna keep this "outfit" on hand so I can pull it out every now and then as my inspiration dictates. It'd be fun to take it to the woods sometime and do a really wild shoot!

Warning: this outfit is not rated for handstands!