For those clueless as to WTF we’re talking about, there’s an exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum right now that is just portraits done OF Frida Kahlo. (I actually have a blog entry in my brain about this, so I’ll be brief.) Suffice it to say, as a portraitist AND someone who loves Mexican art, and particualrly Kahlo’s work, it was a serious treat. Not every day you can look at a ton of pieces of one subject, particularly one who you know a good deal about.

And I loved that they had Weston and Cunningham’s portraits of her hung next to each other, because I’m a silly romantic like that.

I miss you, girl: let’s set a date to get together soon, please?

We were in Powell’s a few hours ago and browsing through the photography section. She snagged a book of “Erotic Photos” and we grabbed a table to flip through it. It’s a pretty hefty book - several hundred pages - and COMPLETELY disappointing. Usually in a book that size I can find at least a few dozen photos that appeal to me, but here there were maybe two.

Looking through that book illustrated, more than anything else, how Exactly The Same every photo was - all women by themselves or with other women, all white, most looking up or shyly down, thin, porn-y type bodies . . . it was really disappointing. I guess it stood out to me so much just because it was SO MUCH of the same over and over.

Oh, hey! Did you make it to the Frida exhibit? How was it?

::fangirl squeal::

Okay, I’m better now.

Verra interesting. Mind, I should probably have qualified my observations by saying the vast majority of men I have photographed were either friends or lovers, and/or were not generally gendernormative. Not sure if that matters, but it might.

If your subjects in that book were uncomfortable, I didn’t see it, but then I’m betting that you likely have a pretty awesome vibe.

And my kingdom to have older people in the studio here. If I celebrated Christmas, I’d make that my Christmas wish every single year.

About photographing men: My experience, as you said, is that straight men are much more relaxed about how they look. But men are not used to the idea of being photographed in the nude and have no “internal tape” for it. When working on “Familiar Men” (my book of male nudes), I found that they were mostly harder to get to relax and be “themselves” compared to most women. I wasn’t a problem since they did relax and get comfortable enough, but it definitely took more work on my part to make that happen. Interestingly, almost all the older men (over 60) that I photographed were remarkably comfortable. Of course, shooting friends is different.

Sigh.

But Ben was an exception to that rule. I’m not, but he was.