I woke up with a start in the middle of the night, and I could not reconcile with sleep. My mind went back to something a coworker said about our strategy, “We are doing our best.” She had said. I replied to her that doing “our best,” was not good enough.The effort exerted would differentiate between mediocrity, and excellence.
Then I realized that what she meant is very common these days. A few weeks ago I had seen a photography and art exhibit. The photographs were of nude women, and I stood there and wondered, why they contained no emotion in their faces. None at all, yet in their corporal language, they seemed shy and too modest to expose their pubic mound.
Why do a nude then? As I scrutinized the poses some of these women chose, I did not perceive joy or sensuality oozing from every pore. Which would seem palpable in a nude frame? Why not emulate the sensuality of Marilyn in the picture depicted above? And ask her to smile as she would to her lover, hovering above?
That joyful delight in the meeting of bodies and minds, on the edge of a bed is present in her smile, differentiates between a mannequin and a woman who in the prelude of ecstasy. Perhaps too, why not a picture of a woman in the throes of an orgasm? Perhaps three close shots during, and post glow, captured in film.
Or the use of a background mirror, on a door, opened halfway which reflects her back as well as frontal nudity? Or lying on her side with a guitar in front, simulating her valleys and curves? Or on the dunes of the desert sand, where the border of flesh and sand lose beginning and end, and create a hillsides of undulating curves, framed by an animated face.
I think too, a picture of a naked woman in a slaughter house, with sides of beef and carcasses of pork hang on metal hooks – dripping blood. The flesh which is sacrificed to nourish that body which also leeks blood. As rivulets of menstrual flow decorate down her limbs to blend with the animal’s blood. Aren’t we all beasts on some level?
As for nude males, one of a man inside a hamster’s wheel, would chronicle the effort to get out of the self-imposed cage, which is considered the norm by today’s standards. And if you photograph a loving couple chained to each other, not in the act of S & M play, but rather in the shackles of a vow and a signed marriage contract.
And if one photographs a group of people in a train or bus, there should be a woman stand oblivious to the fact that a man is mentally masturbating, while he strips away from her every single article of clothing -- minus her shoes and purse perhaps.
Come on, it’s only a job, but why not raise the level? Smile, cry, cum, rage, seduce, shock, but show some shred of humanity for the love of art.
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