Nude Photoshoot

3/5/10, Chris
Shot with P40+ w/ Phase One Digital Back.







On March 5th 2010, I experienced 12 hours of manual labor...technical labor...creative labor.
I love this stuff.

For a class I was assigned to shoot a male nude within a group, each of us taking turns shooting, assisting, gophering, teching (working with Phase One camera P40+ tethered to Capture One software) and general trial and error that would occur throughout the day.

I've shot a male nude once before, and all I knew was that my photos were not going to look like that again. There's this tendency towards overly sexual ideas with nudity in photography...flexing and touching, bedroom eyes, and this very work usually is shot without any actual crude exposure. We're all aware the anticipation is usually more alluring than what is really there....but..
More so than that, America wants it's beautiful purity to remain, with the assistance of censorship laws, traditional Christian values, double standards, et cetera. No matter what our parents did in the groovy generation, all of these ideals made it through to today. And yet, this is all crap. To America, there is no problem with "secretly" getting dirtier and dirtier, you know when you look really REALLY close you see it. Just keep zooming, like a David Lynch film, and there it is.

Either way, this time around, I made a point to create imagery that focused on the aspect of vulnerability that comes with being nude. As well, I played around with the idea of turning his body into something more of a creature, versus human. Creatures are always naked. I did not pay much attention to where his privates were swaying, to me it was less relevant since I'm not creating 'sexual imagery'. The nude body is natural, and it's just honest. No secrets here.

Location Logistics, "Before and After"

238 E. 33rd St
Apt 11
New York, NY
10016




"Before and After" was a great opportunity for me to utilize a space that is familiar to me, and no longer will be. My sister was moving out of her apartment, and originally I assumed I could shoot it before the move, and then afterward. When the project objective became more clear, to create some kind of 'change' within a limited time period, I realized it would be better to make my own creative decisions.

To me this project was an emotional experience; a place where we had many experiences, and one I’ve even lived in myself. This place looks strange now, and yet is still familiar, like an old friend you haven't seen in a while who has become nearly unrecognizable. Stark white walls, scattered with remains of the battlefield.

As I observed the space, I noticed a few items left behind after her move. I looked over the objects that remained and I decided to take on their shape, to mimic them.
I stood there thinking,
"These things left behind, they are all I have left now, to try and remember what was once here, and yet they must mean nothing, since she left them."

So I gave them meaning; paying homage to this apartment through these objects left here, as I wish that I could join them in occupying this space I will miss dearly.


To lighten my homage to this space, I thought I'd do a second concept, since I had some time to spare. My sister and I had an inside joke that her place was haunted, so I decided to play off that joke and create scenes of posters flying off the walls, and surrounding spirits who love to move things when nobody is around to see. There was always some mystery about Apartment 11, and I needed to acknowledge that before I locked the door at 238 East 33rd for the last time.