PUBLISHED WORK

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DON’T LOOK NOW

Don’t Look Now was a film which framed parts of my adolescent development. I was 16. The film itself, a horror classic with a cult following, deals with the psychology of grief and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationship. Amongst the turmoil of those haunting emotions, the two key protagonists, a married couple, have sex just before going to dinner. The matter of fact, naturalistic depiction of this sexual encounter is the creative DNA of what can be found here in my work, 50 years after it first entered my psyche. A review by GQ puts it best.

This couple is attractive, but not filmed with the aim of creating the illusion of perfection – bellies are allowed to have folds in them, body hair is neat but exists. As they fuck, they switch positions a few times, and the film doesn’t cut around stuff like the moment where you try to change position without pulling out, which might be achieved elegantly, awkwardly, or perhaps in a way that is somehow both. They are tender with each other, but also passionate, with lots of hands in hair, hands on shoulders, arms, backs.

LOOK INTENSELY

We are now 50 + years down the line, in half a century we have collectively got Body Matters very wrong. The why’s are not for me to ask. Personally I remain at peace with the beauty a female body which is natural, unmarked or scarred by the passage of time, of any age, size or ethnicity. I encourage you to discipline your thoughts away from the sexual. To look, to stare even, close in, on the tones, the curves, the textures. Begin to form a new skin of beauty, exfoliating away the artificially conditioning signals emitted by, the beauty business, the fashion industry, or the scourge of the cacophonous influence of social media. When the metaphorical lights are out and the dress of the nude is no longer on display, nakedness [link removed] is who we are.

“To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude, is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude. Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguise. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.”   John Burgess The Art Of Seeing

All Bodies Matter : What I seek to capture is the state of a Naked Body. Most of the outcomes are Bodies in the Nude… The pursuit of the former is for me the illusive decisive moment when the dress of Nudity finally peels off and the Naked is revealed. Nakedness is who one is. Their Nude-ness is created in the mind of viewer’s gaze. In the main, the people I photograph wish to be captured in the Nude. What they seek and what is captured is often at odds. We all have different perceptions of how we look and what our mind’s eye, sees. This conflict between our Nakedness and our Nudeness is an unfortunate byproduct of societal conditioning and the fountain of considerable pain for many. I hope the work brings some soothing to some.

I am a photographer, please do not confuse me with a tog. This is not an elitist statement, simply a point of distinction of intents and outcomes.

Thank  you