-- steve v (steve1chsn@aol.com), October 17, 2000

Answers

ok, as a heterosexual woman I4m probably not the right person to judge female nudes, but my spontaneous reaction to this was to laugh out loud - I don4t know when a facial expression like that would be of any use to anybody, except for laughs. On the other hand, it goes well with the Lincoln-style beard - oh that4s her hair? That aside, the backlighting from the window is a nice touch. The cut-off right hand is not.

-- Christel Green (look.no@film.dk), October 17, 2000.

"I4m probably not the right person to judge female nudes" Christel, you are right about that!

-- steve v (steve1chsn@aol.com), October 17, 2000.

"crackwhore needs clothes"

her facial expression is laughable at best. I'd call it absurdly funny. I think christsel knows what she's talking about.

this photo is nothing more than the photographer's envy displayed rather lewdly.

i see nothing redeeming about this nude.

-- ed (ekang@cse.nd.edu), October 17, 2000.

The best nude photography places primary emphasis on light, form, and texture. The window light here doesn't do much for her, and I don't get a lot of form and texture. There is detail in her hair (I can tell because I tured up my monitor to it's highest brightness setting), but the contrast is too high as her hair in both places seems underexposed while the light is way too harsh. It seems odd not to see her right hand. And I'm with Christel, the expression is too fake fetching looking for my taste. The skill being demonstrated here (as in the last) was the rather enviable ability to get an attractive babe to pose nude! :)

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), October 17, 2000.

Still looks like a vampire to me.

Show us some photographic skill, if you have any. All you're showing us here is a womans body, poorly rendered. Her attitude does suggest she has something for the viewer that she has offered to far too many viewers. There's a glaze over her human light that is sad. You make a caricature of "woman" that is one dimensional. Somehow her beauty has been made repulsive, and the word "pimp" comes to mind...

Not to mention the idiotic crop of her left hand (what were you thinking of?)... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), October 17, 2000.

I am still wondering what steve did to get this sorta response, must have been something seriously bad.

Anyone care to clue me in?

-- Altaf Shaikh (bshaikh@nyc.rr.com), October 18, 2000.

I'm wondering what we (this forum) did to deserve it... yeck! Steve and I have had our disagreements before about his taste and mine in photography of women, but I think this latest outbreak started somewhere in here. It might be more worth while to just respond to the images, and let the origins of conflict slide (or maybe just ignore the whole issue and hope it goes away)... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), October 18, 2000.

Thanks tom

-- Altaf Shaikh (nissar@idt.net), October 18, 2000.

To the previous poster who asked what steve did to get this sort of response - he took this photo, didn4t he?

Might we know what you think about it?

-- Christel Green (look.no@film.dk), October 18, 2000.

well, none of the images that steve has posted are about photography or the subject of the photographs. they are about steve, himself. they are the media of egocentricity; and each of our posts, including this one, feeds that ego. the quality of these images is not relevant to him; the images are of value to their maker only to the extent that they draw attention to him. the fact that they are ultimately only effective in demonstrating his total lack of talent is their one redeeming feature. in short, just ignore him, as tom suggests, and he will disappear.

-- wayne harrison (wayno@netmcr.com), October 18, 2000.

If Steve would include some context or state what he was trying to achieve we might have a better basis on which to judge these photos than the annoyance generated by his boorish comments elsewhere.

The model is very beautiful, with a lovely body and refreshingly real-looking breasts. But her poses and the framing of the shots are both awkward, and although the lighting smooths out her skin texture, it does nothing in terms of form and composition. The facial expressions are downright cheesy, and there is an emotional mismatch between their studied exaggeration and the lack of postural tension in her body.

If this is meant to be cheesecake, it fails by the standards of its chosen style. If the 'mistakes' are an attempt to subvert that genre, they're not strong enough - and Steve is merely wringing his hands on the sidelines as the lynching proceeds.

When people ask me if I am a photographer I still find it hard to say yes. One reason is probably the usual English pose of wanting to play the gifted amatuer, but it is mostly because where I grew up, photographers were middle-aged men with greasy hair and Fair Isle cardigans who spent their time trying to talk teenage girls into taking their tops off. On the rare occasions they succeeded, this is the sort of photograph they would take.

-- Struan Gray (struan.gray@sljus.lu.se), October 18, 2000.

I love the strength and harshness of the light. A strong piece of work!

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), October 29, 2000.