1.I am a normal heterosexual male. As such, for me, there is nothing this sided of heaven that exceeds the awesome wonderment of the nude adult human female form in its exquisite complexity and curves. This is especially true when a nude woman’s skin is bathed in beautiful light that creates gorgeous shadows on those curves.
2. I love art and beauty, and I have a deep appreciation for art’s universal and timeless Number One subject: the nude. For centuries, for every culture on every continent, the most common art subject has been, and is, the nude adult human female form. This is a manifestation of Mankind’s realization that the lines and curves of the adult human female are indeed God’s finest and most lovely creation. It is, therefore, a huge challenge to come up with a true, new, original way to render such beauty artistically. I love this stimulating creative challenge.
3. When I create a picture of a nude worthy of critical acclaim it is deeply satisfying. I love the satisfaction that arises when I create a zinger image [one that is “sticky” and commands a long look, and is worthy of critical acclaim].
4. One of the biggest challenges I have encountered is this: Conceiving and creating an original beautiful picture of a nude woman.
5. I wanted a long over due change from what I use to photograph. [Please see my other Internet site, www.cloud9photography.us.]
6. To prove to myself that I can excel at photographing what is arguably God’s finest creation: woman.
7. I especially enjoy the challenge to photograph a nude woman so well she ends up being glorified, and her beauty and nude form are preserved for her, for me, and for others to savior.
8. Since I am legally a single man, I am free to do it because I am not held back by a disapproving wife.
9. I do not equate mere nudity with immorality, sin, or anything illegal.
10. I can look at a beautiful young nude woman and enjoy her beauty without lusting for her or imposing sexuality upon her beautiful natural state.
11. Nude models who pose for me provide me with an indispensable service to promote “art”, and, when I create good pictures of them I provide Mankind a priceless service by recording and preserving their beauty, for the models’ enjoyment and for Mankind’s pleasure, reflection, and contemplation of nature, life, humanity, beauty and love.
12. I admire, respect, and treasure any woman who undresses and poses for art, especially if she knows how to nail a pose.
13. Being in the presence of an uninhibited nude woman, especially outdoors, feels like being on the edge of the Garden of Eden. I guess I have a desire to return to the Garden of Eden, to enjoy God’s original plan: naked in nature, unashamed.
14. To preserve for the model images of her, when she was stunning and ravishingly beautiful, before gravity takes its toll, the sun wrinkles her skin and worries turn her hair gray, for her enjoyment throughout her years.
15. To create thought and emotion provoking symbolic works of art.
16. To do my utmost best to capture every woman’s essence and beauty and create images of her that exceed her most lofty self image.
17. To create an additional source of income.
18. To vent my passions and my creative juices, to get off my butt and create “art”. I disagree with those who are leery of “the passions”. I believe “passions” are typically powerful, positive motivators, the end result of one’s critical thoughts and decisions. Passions arouse strong feelings about what is important and valuable in life and drive us to do something worthwhile.
19. I enjoy developing friendships with creative, bold people, who defy society’s taboos, and I enjoy striving to create original art with them.
20. I enjoy getting to know nude models. They are interesting. Most are pleasant; however, they do not always wear a halo.
21. I believe photographing nudes is 100% consistent with good morality.
22. I love the challenge of creating an elusive important intangible on a one dimensional print and that intangible is intimacy.
23. Intimacy is the best one word that describes a unifying theme for my style of artistic nude photography. By intimacy, I mean this: I do my best to capture precious, up close, intimate moments with a woman [e.g., things a woman typically does in private, such as, when she dresses/undresses; removes her bra; takes a shower or a bath; puts on her make up; preens before a mirror; brushes her hair; daydreams; and aches from missing her guy, as her guy misses her, longs for her, wishes he was with her and allows nothing to prevent him from being with her. Every heterosexual guy who ever loved a woman and could not be with her when he wanted to be knows well the pain and the lost I focus upon, and the joy he experiences when he is reunited with his woman and gets to share her precious companionship.
24. I strive to stimulate a thought provoking, emotional connection between those who look at my pictures and the pictures I take.
25. I strive to achieve perfection per traditional and original approaches, to capture the model’s beauty, to extol women, to bounce off of the model’s energy and creative ideas, to probe to find “zingers”, to create a sense of intimacy.
26. I especially love environmental nudes. For me, photographing an attractive nude woman outdoors, in lovely scenery, is thrilling.
27. I also love to create beautiful tight crop facial portraits.
28. When I started my journey photographing nude models I did not know it then, but, after awhile I came to realize this: A) this endeavor has proven to be an interesting form of self-discovery and an additional step in my maturation; B) it has made me value more humanity, the preciousness of life, beauty, freedom and individuality; C) it has made me understand better that as a result of seeing our differences I can now better see and understand our similarities; and D) it has made me hate even more censorship.
29. A few times I have watched, ultra carefully, different groupings of different nude female models posing together. What I saw, and my thoughts, were interesting, at least to me. Once, I saw two professional highly experienced nude models who had never pose together act awkwardly with each other as they struggled to intertwine their bodies in an attractive pose, and once, I saw two different highly experienced nude models who had posed together frequently quickly flow from one gorgeous pose to another, endlessly. As I watched these nude women move, I came back to a long held fundamental opinion of mine: In the end, what matters, when it comes to compatibility, companionship, commitment, and true love, is not the women’s height, weight, age, face or figure, but the intangibles, namely, how good is her core? What are her values? Her goals? Her likes/dislikes/fears? What is between her ears and behind her breastbone? A woman’s skin will sag and wrinkle and her hair will turn grey but her basic core will endure and remain stable.
Conclusions
Nude models matter. They are important. They play an important role in our culture and in the creation of and appreciation of art, especially the beauty of the nude human form. They offer their nude bodies to be appreciated so we end up accepting and appreciating our own bodies as a source of amazement and joy.
No human being should be ashamed of their body, regardless of its shape, size, or their age, and no human being should be ashamed of being nude.
Nude is our natural shape.
The biggest and worse obscenity is the brainwashing that teaches us to be ashamed of our nude bodies and to be overly self conscious and ultra critical of ourselves and our bodies.
Nude models help us to understand and to accept ourselves, as we are, in our natural state: naked.
Nude modeling is a true art form. When done well it requires practice, skill and finesse. If you disagree, try it.
I once had an experienced attractive 19-year old professional stripper tell me she knew how to be a nude model because she was taught about the “S” curve [arched back] in stripping school and she did not need to know anything more except take off her clothes and flaunt what she had. This young woman manifested her ignorance. There is a lot more to being a good professional nude model than having an attractive face and figure, knowing how to strike an “S” curve pose, and being uninhibited nude.
I have worked with inexperienced nude models who posed for free and with highly experienced professional nude models who are expensive. While I do not like how a professional nude model’s fees draw down my financial reserves, when anyone compares their poses to those of an inexperienced model the material differences are instantly glaring.
For me, one form of heaven on earth is this: To be close to a professional nude model and I know with each click of the shutter, the model will give me a seemingly endless beautiful pose, she will nail the pose, and she will hold the pose for me. Lovely! Productive! Effective!
A good nude model has a large number of beautiful poses; knows what to do with her hands and how to place and hold her hands and fingers, and legs, too; is sensitive to the quality and direction of light and atmospherics; has situational awareness regarding her surroundings; knows what the photographer wants and needs; knows how to work with props, studio lights, and clothes; will strain to give a maximum effort “S” curve despite her pain; will endure temperature extremes; will lay down on cold wet sand so a photographer can capture her reflection in the receding tide; will lay down on coarse hot gravel in the summer or wet cold coarse rock in the winter; and will pose nude even when the wind chill factor is high.
Consequently, I deeply appreciate, and support, nude models for their service to me and other photographers in support of our combined celebration of the human form and art.
As to those who disapprove of nude models or artistic nude photography, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, values, and decisions. If you disapprove, don’t look. It is that simple.
I could be wrong but I suspect that many, if not most, of those who disapprove of nude models and artistic nude photography, suffer from their own insecurities, body acceptance issues, bitterness, intolerance, and are inclined to be judgmental, authoritarian, and anti-freedom.
The time I spend creating artistic nude pictures is satisfying, rewarding, and productive. It also keeps me out of trouble.
As I do my best to create socially redeeming art, I know I stand on the shoulders of others who did the same, for centuries, far better than I do now.