Nude Photography

This is beautiful, Tony! The tones and composition are gorgeous! (not to mention the body) Looking forward to doing your workshop this year!

stunning shot Tony

wow, very beautiful, there is definately an art in knowing how to get the best out of your subject

Wow – stunning image…

Great image, amazing figure, i’m guessing this girl is very physically fit, really toned figure, but not overly so, well captured.

It almost feels painted

Perfection!

Great diagonal compo!

Great skin tones as always, Tony. Love the DOF used to isolate the muse. My sentiments on the female nude reflect your own. The female form is natures ultimate work of art that nothing else can match. It is so sad that their are those that bring the perversions within their own minds to veil the beauty they would see otherwise.

That dutch tilt makes this pic, me think.s.. great shot!

She has perfect tone and structure!!!! You’ve captured it perfectly.

Such beautiful soft flesh-tones… ! Nice work.

Beautiful work, wonderful body lines!

Beautifully shot

Simply fantastic!!

lovely composition

one of the best toned bodies i have seen. and the tone of the picture itself is amazing. well shot.

beautiful…her skin looks like porcelain.

great photography and writing

Tony this is a great piece of art, for the body is natural, beautiful and so very graceful, she is appealing to all in the fact that she is not made up, the angles in this shot are graceful and very feminine, this is one lady that should be proud of all she is….well done..

great work tony!

Stunning Tony and no jeans, undie etc marks, excellent direction and/or model knowledge :-)

A perfectly taken image of a perfect unmarked body!

gasps, wheezing breath before many curves, colors, and beauty, a photographer who understands sensitivity of female beauty

Perfect! Beautiful!

Great tones tony. Nice shot

Couldn’t agree more! Awesome work!

Your work is fabulous!!!

such a beautiful toned body, she is incredibly fit! great lighting.

firstly I apologise for such a long post.
Tony this is a thoughtful statement you have placed here, although, I myself used to be in advertising many years ago and realised that your statement is true regarding the commodification of beauty. My argument is however loosely put together here and I don’t want to crush the “beauty” paradigm. I personally woke up to the way I was using female imagery to promote product many years later after studying anorexia and other eating disorders directly relating to “beauty” and stereotyping of beauty. I noticed that it became a very, very, narrow bandwidth used by promoters in this voracious industry. I used to do illustrations for Playboy and Penthouse magazine and got invited to some of the raunchiest parties known. I saw after quite a few parties the real damage done to “some” models in the magazines behind the scenes, some girls ending up with 3 kids to different men! Sadly some girls end up single and so screwed up by this experience they end up on a cycle of drugs eventuating in porn films etc. Not my problem? Another angle, sometimes the victims ended in fatality because they didn’t think they were “beautiful” enough in the eyes of society ended up in eating disorders. Some of the girls were quite insecure based off just their looks alone. This really sunk in deep, having really looked into the sad eyes of some of the most stunning women on the planet first hand. I felt also on an intuitive level that it was like watching a very high-class prostitution racket to gain advertising dollars for product placement.
I gave up painting for the magazines based off these observations and after knowing one girl personally so obsessed with looking beautiful against her “sisters”, she used to vomit everything up after eating (bulimia). She became so ill it consumed her to almost the point of death, I still know her after 20 years and she still has “issues” in this area due to powerful imprinting and re imprinting via inculcated imagery, that never seems to cease. One of the main culprits? her own father.
I was occasionally commissioned to airbrush “faults” from models to sate image hungry clients. The art directors themselves became so “picky” about faults it was hardly noticeable unless observed over a long period of time. The art directors were never “happy” enough resulting in the cycle repeating. I realised, for me, that just one less image of stereotyped women the way “men” want them to be, made a difference. So political correctness to coin your term, is only partial to a complex much broader societal problem. As soon as one “compares” one woman against another, the division and problem remains. Externally there is beauty, yes, we all die old and ugly, yes, and it’s lasting beauty inside the old hag I feel makes a mature society whole.
The deeper aspect of the “beauty” argument gets into a deeper philosophical rave of “immortality” in external beauty and forever youthful imagery, and that’s where some really dark psychology starts to unfold, re the latest Bill Henson nude scandal of pre pubescent girls. By stealth they keep getting “younger”, more “perfect” and eventually…who knows, my six-year-old daughter?

I was asked by a professional female psychologist who blamed men for this over all problem, I came back with most “women” aren’t forced to take their clothes off, nor are they forced to become prostitutes (in most cases) they “choose” to. I also stated they (women) also play a role in their own inability to emancipate themselves through what seemed a very deep-seated guilt, “maybe” due to deeper archetypal collective trauma? She couldn’t respond. I’m still searching for the cause; I “think” it lay deep in our collective past in our “garden of Eden blame eve myth”.

Some thoughtful points that I’d like to clarify Tony, Tony _{have a great link to control issues} yes this is absolutely correct, you hit the nail on the head, but, don’t forget the beauty is the overt trigger, because the victims perceived lack of “beauty” makes her feel she has no power or ‘control’ over her life.
That’s where “we” as artists and “controllers” of imagery must take more responsibility.
This is the most important point, who controls the “power of image”? We are receivers and now creators of media in general and minorities are projectors of images, the latter is growing with the Internet age.
In my case I realised that not everyone can understand the aesthetic vs. exploit argument. In other words I had no power over where and who saw my images.
It’s like putting heroin in front of kid in the shape of a lolly. The kid just sees the lolly. I found the responsibility was that I couldn’t control the issues in the viewer’s immature minds with my images and the huge effects in society in general especially working for porn magazines in my case. The women were “portrayed” stunningly and aesthetically from the my/artist’s view, but it still ended up as porn at the other end. That’s one side of it; the other is why women feel depowered? How many women read porn mags?
In one word I took “responsibility” for my projections. I felt I could justify my artistic sensibility until the cows came home; after all, I’m a man who “appreciated beauty” or so I thought. I hadn’t even asked opinions of the opposite sex what they thought and they differed enormously. A point in case.
I had an oil painting done by a well-known artist in Sydney (name withheld) on my wall of a stunning lady in what I thought a very demure position. A French female diplomat came to my house for dinner and the conversation turned to the painting. Her opinion stunned me, she said the artist “hated” women?? I was thrown, on reflecting on this discussion about the artist, I found she was right, he portrayed the women like a slut but I couldn’t see it. It was a very thin line.
His (the artist’s) own life? he had been abandoned by his own mother and was an orphan, he never forgave her, so his subtle hatred of women pervaded every image as he undressed them and painted them as his mother. He ended up having so many affairs during his marriage that it screwed his whole mind up. The final nail in the coffin came when a well know Porn magazine was sued for portraying a well-known newsreader naked in an artwork. (no names mentioned) The payout figure in 6 figures.

“Image and control” may not be the primary problems but they’re usually present in most cases after talking to my female friend who was a victim of bulimia. The victims don’t fit the societal model of the “perfect” person in our society with its narrow bandwidth of “acceptance” via “external” parameters set by the plethora of weekly magazines and media portrayals available, including our artwork.
These points go much deeper and “may” reside in the archetypal memory of the primary imprint circuit, which is what goes into the mouth as a baby. This primary imprint circuit is in all of us, and is formed at birth when we first put our mothers “sweet milk” from the teat into our mouth. I highlight sweet, very important. As the growing infant minds although simple have powerful ramifications during one’s whole life.
Perceptual psychologists know this fact and are paid handsomely by advertising magnates not to spill the beans on this knowledge, lest we wake up to their magic tricks. I personally studied this after leaving that industry behind.
Later on when people grew older, feel rejected or hurt or the myriad or other rejections faced based of lack of image or power/control over their own lives always resort to the primary imprint circuit for comfort. The mouth. This point is very important in regards to war and just about everything going on today, as it’s all war. The first thing the powerful militaries did when bombing Iraq was cut the “food” and “water” supply which is forbidden by the Geneva convention??. This is the process of getting Iraqi’s to re imprint the “agressors” as the “mother” who feeds us. On a more subtle level, this “war” is waged on emerging markets in third world countries constantly. The first product to enter an emerging market a sweet fizzy drink “Koqua kola” (name changed for copyright) this is the weapon of the first imprint. Sugar (sweet milk). The rest is history; once you’ve got the victim’s mouth under control you got their mind.
This model is also used in prison. Prison is not just a place where criminals reside; we are in a mind prison of control in everything we consume. Fasting and going without in regards to food, opens one to this “manipulation’ and once you control what you eat you can’t be controlled on higher circuits. This is inculcated with every Guru on the planet. Fast first, then get realisations. Once one can control their eating habits they gain immense control over the rest of their life. If one thinks this stupid. I read recently by an economics “guru” in regards to the resolution of the middle east peace process and I thought it very odd. He said that the countries that didn’t have McJohnalds and Koke etc were an impedance to “world peace” and I thought what a stupid statement, but on reflection, he slipped up with one of the greatest secrets of war and mind control in general. Control the mouth, control the mind Tony.
In this case fast food giants and the implications of insignia and brand loyalty were the primary focus of “creating peace” although these countries have their own food??
In other words “eat like us, be like us”.

The primary circuit splits into two directions in victims, they either shut down this circuit (not eat) or go the opposite (over eat) always-placing “sweet substances” into the primary circuit (mouth) in the latter case, bulimia is triggered by the guilt circuit which is developed later in life. The victim fights the urge to gorge knowing or becoming aware that the food is NOT the substitute for real love and a conflict arises. Food becomes the enemy in this case which if left unchecked will end up Anorexia The sweet food as mother’s milk is evident during war times, chocolate sales skyrocket through lack of personal control over ones life.
Until the underlying links, that of “sweet substance inserted in mouth” is made, as a causal link, then nothing will change. Take cigarettes as well, apart from the genetically manipulated nicotine levels to heighten addiction, which is another story, same thing, target the first imprint, the mouth. When people get depressed, they need that “up” but why are they depressed?... Image portrayal?, control?, primary imprint?, I’m still looking. But I also learnt to say No to my input!

and “censoring” isn’t the issue, understanding the causal links is. I’m dead against censoring as that is merely “reaction” not “solution”. It’s mainly that people don’t understand the archetypal links, very important.
cheers

_{With regards to victim mentality I find this to be deeply embedded into human nature} this point Tony is being discussed by some of the planets best esotericists and psychoanalysts and a very, very, good point. Collective psycho trauma seems evident and I explain that in the way advertises use “aversion therapy” techniques. See my journal post and links on that. Very interesting, and used heavily by media still, which is illegal. It’s just very subtle.
In regards to who sees images, I will only say I could never control who saw the image, due to spread marketing techniques as opposed to niche marketing and control of image. So my self regulator kicked in. Also, due to “immature” minds I realised there is a stack of ignorants who misread work. The end result was the same. cheers

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Aloha Tony, holy toledo!!

All this seems to have brought your comments to a screeching halt.
I am curious, why don’t you remove all this …. conversation.... it completely distracts the viewer, meaning me at this point, as well as others I am sure, and while I understand all the deeper subtle nuances and the bigger picture of course, it has a negative impact on your beautiful imagery as it veils your image by association. My God. It is so off the mark. And you are so spot on! Have you ever heard the saying ‘You can actually listen a person’s soul into existence’. I believe it. And it is directly because of your literary works and writings that I genuinely like you.

Like most people I have been reading your mail, and while this page is a good read ….... oh yes, I almost forgot why I was here. Your portrait is sensitive and quite wonderful and the young woman is very beautiful. She looks like me when I was 19. This genuine complimentary observation is coming from someone who rarely views or comments on this style of work as I am generally more drawn to seascapes, skyscapes, landscapes and digital fantasy art, as is quite evident in my favourites folder. However, it is important to note that I am present here on your page to offer my support and encouragement because your work stands out above the rest, primarily because you are so pure at heart.

Very nice image Tony. I totally agree with your passion and your art. I like you would never want to demean or disrespect any of my models. They collaberate with me on almost all of my series with the goal of their bodies being used to create works of fine art. The beauty of their natural bodies with the lighting, photographic expertise and the photographers eye for the entire work creates a lasting fine art Image. I agree with Sharon, I would not let JohnScottArtist’s comments detract from your fine work.

beautiful

not only aesthetical but testeronical …............ superb tones, highlights, shadows and above all … model ….......... deeelish …............... :))

beautiful image – amazing skin tone!!

wow!!!

Absolutely Gorgeous !

Only one thing to say about this shot . . beautiful , , , the light the pov and model what more can you say , , , well done