chat

Unfortunately, I think we're all destined to evaluate our own body image against the norm of society, to a lesser or greater degree. I know in most cases I feel pretty good about myself and my body, but if I'm sitting, and I catch a reflection in the TV, or take a photo of myself, or see one taken by someone else, I get disgusted with how I look, with my stomach, and the almost shapeless appearance I seem to take on when I'm seated. That's why I like that one photo I sent so much. It's one shot of me seated that I find appealing and flattering, despite the fact that I'm sitting on the commode.

I'd like to know how the body image society currently holds up as a model evolved. The extreme nature of it is disconcerting. I see women come in to work who would fit the "perfect" woman model and it's unsettling. It's unsettling because of the coiffed and primped and utterly fake facade that exists. They exude this aura of high-maintenance and self-absorption. I don't know any of them personally, so I'm making a broad generalization but the fact remains that to a single one of them, they are caked in makeup, with perfectly manicured nails of at least 3-4cm, wearing the highest of fashionable clothing with excessive amounts of glittery jewelery.

Arguably, men have it easier. If a man has the classic musculature necessary to be considered "Adonis", he can wear whatever he wants. The body is complete. That's not to say men don't struggle with this as much as women, such as the guy I worked with for a spell some years back, taking creatine shakes and eating regimented amounts of food for specific numbers of caloric intake coupled with a vicious workout regimen. It was brutal and just as unsettling as what women go through.

I think that the psychology of body image is necessarily co-mingled with self examination. Without all that pressure bearing down, I wouldn't care what the hell I looked like, and indeed, I care less than some do. One thing my father imparted on me as a child is the importance of personality, or the "inner self" versus how one looks. So while I do care about my body image, I care more about who I am.

It's interesting, in my mind how things come together. I'm reading art & fear and one of the points they made was the validity of art, or of the point of art. Specifically the authors were discussing the esoteric nature of art for the sake of art, and how that sort of art is alienating to the audience, because the audience has no way in which to relate or contextualize the artwork.

The reason I find this interesting is my thoughts on why I began delving into self examination. It started one day in the shower as I was standing under the hot water, just relaxing. I looked down at myself, and from that vantage point, I felt there might be a pleasing image there somewhere. I began to think about myself as a subject, and then delved into my own body psychology and capturing that with the camera.

From that came the set of pictures I took the other day, examining myself, my relationship to my body, and masturbation. I took a similar picture to the one you described. There's an appeal to sexual photos of the self, and I continually feel the urge to take some, although I don't as often as I get the urge. The same abstraction you refer to attracts me to the body as a subject.

RK: We were talking briefly about subject/object yesterday and I was way too tired to make any comment. You said that once you look through your camera, everything becomes a subject. Does that include inanimate objects then, like balloons, guitars etc? Andres Serrano also does a lot of sexual pics, perhaps pornographic, depending on your view point. For instance, I have seen two of his. In one a woman was fisting a man and in another a woman was peeing in a man's mouth (no, I didn't type fisting into google, before you ask! I came across them by accident. Really!). I don't know what his reasons are behind it. You know he did the piss Christ, right? There are a lot of religious and sexual crossovers with his work and I don't know if he has something to say or if he wants to shock, but like with the morgue pics, I guess it all has to do with the split between artist and audience perception.

Which leads back to the issue we started on.

You said you see everything as subject, even before you view the world through your camera, or perhaps, you ALWAYS view the world that way. I know exactly what you mean. I constantly see things and think that would make a great photo. Thing is, I'm not a photographer. I don't know anything about technique, the use of light and shadow, focus etc. I just point and shoot. It's because either I see something I want to keep (an image) or I get a picture in my

head I want to create. If I could draw I would get it that way. But I can't. So I just get it on film (as it were). Also, I write, because I have discovered that is what I am best at. So everywhere I see and hear things that will end up in a novel. I wonder if something might be classed as subject (eg. that interesting looking person who wears no shoes and talks to himself... he might become a character in my novel) if it is to be written about, rather than photographed, because then it's not him exactly, but a replica of him, in words.

Anyway, this seems like it's off the point but I guess it's still about self-exploration... Or is it? The whole theme of self-exploration is so huge, if you included the role of the self in your art. But I guess we're talking mostly about self-portraiture, right?