The Voyeur's Exhibition

This clone shot was conceived and completed all in the space of about an hour (with a pause in the middle for breakfast). I woke up to the noise of heavy machinery across the street, and stepped up on the furniture to take a peek out the window (covered on bottom for privacy, but open at top for natural light). As an artist who is my own muse, I often wonder how I look from a third person perspective, and I thought that this would be an interesting pose to photograph - so I did. There was some empty space in the frame, so I decided to throw in a clone.

It still amazes me how much of a taboo society puts on human genitalia. This is a beautiful portrait of the human body. You may or may not find it arousing (it's certainly fine if you do), but it's tasteful - not vulgar, or sexually explicit in any way. Why do certain parts of our bodies have this stigma, that they have to stay covered up all the time and hidden from general audiences? This isn't pornography. Yet we treat it as if it were.

Anyway, I think it's interesting that this is another in a long line of portraits from throughout my career that blurs the distinction between voyeurism and exhibitionism. I'm the one peeking out the window, curious to see what's going on outside, while staying hidden from view. Yet, I'm also the one who's naked - the thing voyeurs are typically on the lookout for. The fact that this whole situation (which really happened, I didn't make it up just for the shot) is being photographed and then shared with others makes it a wholly exhibitionist depiction of a voyeuristic situation - we're not seeing what the voyeur is seeing, we're seeing the voyeur.

I guess that's what happens when you're a nudist, but you're also an artist, and you understand the appeal of both voyeurism and exhibitionism. The really fun thing to imagine, though, is that this sort of thing might be going on when you're out on the street. That face in the window, almost wholly obscured by a curtain? That could be a naked person in there! And what's more, we always imagine (well, the prudes do) that it's some nosey old lady doing the snooping. But what if that naked person in there was actually attractive? It sounds like a fantasy, and the odds might be against it, but take it from a nude model who was in that very position just today - I'm telling you, it happens.

And as an artist, I make it my purpose to go the next step further, and show you. You're welcome.