Dune 17063448 - Limited Edition of 10 Photograph

My work is mostly nudes. Frequently abstract, often formal, sometimes whimsical, and occasionally political. Not obscured, coy, demure, or reserved, but direct, frank, forthright, and unambiguously nude. I made my first nude image over 40 years ago. It was 1977 and I was a young photography student. For my initial assignment with a view camera, my partner reclined on her battered old wood desk and that was our first nude image. I still have the negative and she still has the desk. It was a typical nude image for the time, a partial torso of an attractive young woman discretely posed. For that matter, it’s a typical nude image for today too. The photographic world hasn’t made much progress when it comes to depicting nudity. Since that time we’ve shot a lot of nudes. At times life interfered, jobs and kids take up a lot of time, but there weren’t many months in those forty years that we haven’t shot something. A lot has never been printed or shown. There were false starts, mistakes, and reshoots to correct flaws. The best images are grouped into the major projects shown here. I find it helpful to have a theme and then I work it to death. I’m usually working on a couple of projects concurrently. It takes me a long time to finish. Some projects start serendipitously in the middle of another. It just hits me, that would be a great image, and then the model gets confused because suddenly the lights are moving and the photographer is upside down on the floor and asking for a weird change to the pose. And the first image of a new project is made. Occasionally I look back through the files of negatives and find something that should be printed or inspiration for a new project. A benefit of digital scanning and processing is that images can be rescued from technically poor negatives. Yes, I made some of those, although thankfully not very many. It’s been a journey and it’s not over yet.