There’s a problem within various photography communities, and misinformation is being put forth to game the photography world. It has to do with nudity. The running joke is that in order to get prominence on social media, you just have to shoot with Kodak Portra, have a nude woman, and overexpose the photograph by a bit. This joke is a take on the deplorable example that the collective sets forth for photographers. In our 15 years, the Phoblographer has released articles on and profiled several photographers who do different takes on nudity. They all have something in common: several layers of artistic expression without the primary intent of commercialization. And if you reread and interpret that sentence for what it is, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
What is Art? Content is Not Art
I’m a former mod for the R/Polaroid subreddit, and often, I kept quiet on several things. One of the problems that irked me the most is the proliferation of OnlyFans creators and social media content creators looking to gamify a system to become more famous. I’ve vocally dissented about this before. But what several of them are doing isn’t art. And it’s very evident. Instead, they’re creating content that appeals to several markets so that they can reel in followers, likes, clicks, etc. It’s kind of like how Stuff Magazine will write articles about the best cameras while no one on staff has ever touched one.
That’s one of the big differences here: there is art and content. Content is designed to be temporary and is primarily designed with the idea of bringing in money. Art is designed with the idea of self-expression first, and money might come later. The two can surely coexist in balance. Publications like the NYTimes make content on social media to promote their articles on the website, which are more like their art pieces. We see art in museums — in contrast, we scroll past content in a way that we scrolled through television channels aimlessly in the 2000s and 1990s.
That, of course, doesn’t mean that there isn’t paid art. Annie Leibovitz and Mark Seliger make some incredible paid art that has continued to be celebrated for a long time. Like those spoofing the magician David Blain, early YouTube videos can be considered art. Those pieces were created with full artistic expression.
It’s in strong contrast to posting a nude selfie shot on Instax film or even just a photo of a nude woman by the seashore. We can often look at a photograph and try to figure out what the intent was. That’s separate from interpretation. But several artists don’t want to talk about their intent — yet in 2024, it’s more important than ever. I encountered this with photographer Muriel Hasburn at her ICP opening. Considering the scope of her work, however, it’s easy to understand that she might not be able to fully connect with what she was feeling.
Algorithmic Rewards
The photographs being posted on social media platforms are often rewarded by the algorithms simply because of upvoting done by the community. But again, it’s content. And the content being made is appealing to human needs and wants. Sometimes there’s even sarcastic commentary made on the images. All of this helps them rise to the top of the algorithm.
It’s a problem in various places. It’s rampant in Facebook groups, Instagram, Behance, Flickr, and Reddit. More recently, it’s also come back to Tumblr (again) — but even they’re taking measures to curb it.
But again, this isn’t artistic expression. It’s content designed to game an algorithm. There aren’t organic layers to the finalized piece.
How Photographers Are Doing Nudity Right
To help people understand what we’re talking about, we’re going to link to various interviews we’ve done and talk about why each of them are putting art at the forefront.
Lukasz Spychala
Bodies
Lukasz doesn’t always use nudity in his images. However, he talks about how there are several layers in his photographs and representations. He even actively discusses metaphors. Lukasz has done this more than once with us too.
Nicholas Freeman
Nicholas Freeman has done fantastic work. Our readers commented on this article, discussing how artistic the work is. Further, some stated that lots of other work out there looks like a Gynecological examination. Nick uses spotlight effects, shadows, and the nature of black and white to make silhouettes.
Henriette Sabroe Ebbesen
Henriette Sabroe Ebbesen uses mirrors, unique perspectives, painterly effects, and nature to create nude photographs that we’d never see created by an AI algorithm or even doing particularly well on social media platforms dominated by the male gaze.
Daniel Moreno
Daniel Moreno creates bodyscapes, which are photographs designed to mimic the look of traditional landscapes but use the human body. It’s an incredibly abstract process.
Charlotte Bories
Charlotte creates literally entire underwater fantasy scenes with prop styling, specific lighting, carefully selected colors, etc. Often there is nudity, but you can tell that the image wouldn’t work without it.
Nina Ahmadi
Nina Ahmadi in her own words, uses nudity to express the chaos she feels about her body, gender identity, and her Afro-Cuban heritage. There are several ways that these images could’ve been done, but the artistic intent of nudity comes through for sure.
Anna Laza
Anna Laza makes incredible bodyscape images in black and white. Sometimes they involve the hair, while at other times, it’s just skin and a background of some sort. They remind us of lots of drone photographs done in black and white.
Natalia Kovachevski
Natalia expressed to us that she’s inspired by the way that women were depicted in history. “Several artists from different periods of art history inspire me, but I’m especially drawn to mythological scenes representing women,” she tells us. “I question the ways in which women are depicted throughout art history. I am also passionate about discovering the visions of female artists–Angelica Kauffmann, Artemisia Gentileschi, Rosalba Carriera, and Sofonisba Anguissola among them.”
