The Intimate funnel

While it doesn’t happen as much anymore, people will sometimes equate boudoir/intimate photography to porn. And while my mission is to be body positive, sex positive and positivity positive, I’m not a big fan of the comparison, for a number of reasons.

First, let’s define pornography. There are a variety of descriptions, but let’s go with the one at Dictionary.com:

printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.

So. It is explicit display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic feelings.

So, let’s look at what I do.

Firstly, what I do is meant to empower women, whereas porn has typically set about to objectify women. Women are sexual beings, not sexual objects, and one of my goals is to portray women as master of their own sexual destiny, in charge of their own desires and goals. There are strong, independent women making and starring in porn, and more power to them. But that’s not what I’m trying to capture here. There is a progression of intimate photography, from beauty, to boudoir, to fine art nude to intimate to erotica, each step more explicit, but never exploitative.

Second, the focus: Porn starts wide, then zooms in on the physical process. On the mechanics of what is happening with the body. It seeks to stimulate a physical reaction. Porn funnels its focus onto the genitals in both the photographs and in the viewer. Intimate photography—at least the way I practice it—is always about the person. About the body, yes, but also about the mind, about the soul, about the character. Even if the content is similar, the focus is different; one appeals merely to the body, the other, when done properly, appeals to the mind. It seeks to inspire a mental and an emotional reaction. To funnel the attention towards emotional connections with the person in the image. Sometimes this is for the subject’s significant other. Sometimes it is for the subject themselves. Frequently, it accomplishes both. Sometimes those emotions are sexual, yes, but they are part of the whole package of emotions: of love, desire, fondness, empowerment, attraction, intrigue.

Now this doesn’t mean that intimate photography doesn’t concern itself with the body. It does. But the body is just one part of the person that is being photographed. I believe in body positivity; that doesn’t just mean that I accept people who are curvy, it means that I don’t believe that any part of the body is “dirty”, unless you didn’t shower before your session. There is no part of you that is less deserving of being celebrated, but the way that is captured is not to exploit but to reveal. And if you decide that you are only comfortable showing your face and your forearms, that’s okay. If you want to show off your genitals, that’s okay, too. As I have said before, my goal is to capture personality, character emotion as much as it is to capture sexy images. Women frequently have a very complicated, and often negative reaction to their bodies and with their sexuality; my goal is to have you come out of the shoot with more positive feelings towards yourself as a whole being, body, mind, soul.

As always, if you want to discuss a session and what it might entail, there is no obligation to book. We can just talk.