A highly unusual combination of nudes which don't hide the body, and yet are not meant to be erotica, but portraits. And even more unusually, he is not afraid of smiles and happiness. Many of the portraits have the most wonderful, warm smiles. And are beautiful B/W photos on top of it.
Bert said:
I oft wonder if it is the models or the photographers who have a problem with smiles. It just feels so important for me to have at least one (genuine!) smile in a photo shoot. A shot like the one shown here reveals so much on the model that it should be mandatory in a portrait session!
I suspect it's a reaction against all the fake and forced and gratuitous smiles in amateur photography. I mean real amateur: people who only take family snapshots and always tell the kids to Smile.
Also there's a general perception that if something is pleasant, it can't be serious art. You won't find a humorous novel winning a literature prize. You won't find a pretty painting in a censored art exhibition.
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Also from Mike: This is why pictures in glossy mags seem too good to be true. Scary stuff. Like I said recently: people love fake. Many prefer it.
6 comments:
I oft wonder if it is the models or the photographers who have a problem with smiles. It just feels so important for me to have at least one (genuine!) smile in a photo shoot. A shot like the one shown here reveals so much on the model that it should be mandatory in a portrait session!
Man, that sample image is just adorable!
I wish some classic painter had portrayed Mother Eve with such natural candor and innocence. Ah well, we still have some Venus masterpieces to enjoy. :-)
These here images are not considered "classics", because they're photographs and because their author is still alive, but they deserve to be considered as such, like, right now.
My homonym "started out as a hairdresser"? What an interesting coincidence...
One of my internships in a new hospital started with the discovery of a horrible mess the previous interns had left in our quarters. One of the less messy things they had left (along with a nargueeleh and a cardboard plate of dried mashed potatoes), was a pin-up calendar, with an asian girl in various bikinis. She was okay, but there were some things I really didn't like: her lips were too thin and not symmetrical, and her eyes really weren't pretty.
So I had this weird idea, that a wee bit of intelligent make-up might suffice to make her face real pretty. I picked a photo where I liked her expression, took my blue pen (didn't have a black one), and gave her an eye-liner job, making it as light and natural-looking as possible. Then I took a red pen, and being careful not to use too much, I made the equivalent of a light-red lipstick. The end result was impressive and surprised me, modesty aside. I don't know whether I was very talented, or if a tad of intelligent make-up is enough to make small miracles. I fixed two of the calendar's photos that way.
I would've kept them, and been able to show them to you today, but one of my colleagues felt "inspired" by my example, and did his own version of make-up on the other photos: awful-looking whore-style, very thick mascara stuff... and one day I discovered that the images I had left displayed in our quarters because now they looked nice, had also received the hooker treatment. Totally ruined. :-P
Well, that was a long-winded way to say that I seem to have some aptitude in minimal but improving make-up. IMHO. Most Lebanese girls I know can't resist using WAY too much.
I wouldn't do Mr Dangin's work, though. I'd much rather help ordinary women look stunning in real life, with their real faces, by a minimum amount of fixed lines. Often it's all in the small details, and the gifts of Nature handle the rest.
"My homonym "started out as a hairdresser"?"
Whaddoyoutalk?
"My homonym "started out as a hairdresser"?"
Whaddoyoutalk?
P04 is referring to Pascal Dangin who started out as a hairdresser...
Yup. But let's not start splittin' hayrs, pilgrim. Ah reckon it could become danginrous to dem' purty ladies' hayds, raht?
Ah mean, them's still got dem' hairs on deir' purty lil' ol' hayds!
An' don' go gettin' me stahrtid about their "hayulp!" screams if'n you show dem a compyewter mouse!
Giddyup, y'all.
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