#226 October 6th, 2014 10:10 AM

Lena_D

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Wow nice pics!! And you're way younger than what I thought! Very good idea to put a picture of you, I can finally put a face on your name
I had totally crazy experiences while I was in the bush and I have to say that I really miss it! I'm just in Melbourne for few weeks for work and I'll run back at my bf's place asap ^^ So yeah btw it's another one than the one you saw on the pictures, I had to break with this one, big trust issue!! But I'm way happier now so I guess that life still rewards people who can be trusted.
And you're right, that shoot is very good, we can really see the complicity between us it's very cute I think. I'm very glad you enjoyed the shoots, I've still have two to be released and two which are waiting (I love doing shoots so now I have too many ^^). Have you been on IFM to see the end of my video? That was so much fun
I'm happy you understand the frustration I can sometimes have when I write, we should start a club 'the frustrated writers' Ahaha! But once again, very happy that you found a place to express yourself freely. Good to see/read!
The way you approach photography is pretty interesting, very far from mine so I have to say I had never seen it like that! I'm so excited to do different erotic shoots, my brain is overflowing with ideas, I hope that we're going to work well together my bf and I. But we are both aesthetes so I guess that the result should be nice! I'll definitely post some here, to have your point of view guys!!
Very nice french words, very poetic! What is the song they come from?
Oh and you told us you have plenty more images to share, go for it!! We can't wait

Elsa_H

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

I'm a little late to this party, but I'm gonna post some stuff anyway! Ben - you're a babe! And I love the images you posted (including your shots). I love the feeling of nostalgia they evoke. They also stir up this feeling deep inside me that makes me want to pack a bag, buy a van and live like a gypsy for the summer; to not have any commitments, dance drunk and naked on beaches and sprawl on cool grass in forests and form fleeting friendships with people I might never see again.

It's really cool how much you love/know about photography! I always envy people that have a knack for it, the way you can perfectly capture or manipulate a moment. I have one of the new school 'polaroids' and while it's not the same as the original, it's still really fun and the images always have a really great feel to them.

polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Hey Elsa!!!:):) it's so beautiful & exciting to see your message:):) You said such lovely things & everything meant so much to me, you're so kind & you totally made me blush!!:) I think you're a total babe too:):) (now i'm blushing even more!!) I'm so glad you wrote as i'd love to share with you that recently i have finally been able to re-join IFM & so was able at last to see your videos on there & i wanted to say that i think the experiences you shared are simply so overwhelming in their beauty & it really affected me (& still does) thinking about how breathtaking i found the videos & how beautiful you are in them & it really made me quite emotional & got me thinking quite deeply about how special it must feel for you (& for all the other amazing contributors whose incredible & beautiful videos i am discovering) to know that you've captured in your videos such a beautiful & natural expression of your own sexuality. I'm still totally loving your ISM lifeskills videos too & i've lost count of how many times when i've been having a stressful day or am upset or worried about something, i've put them on & ended up with a big smile & all worries gone & the videos made me discover that we actually have a really similar sense of humour & so everything you said made me smile sooooo much & left me feeling really happy!!!:):):)

I totally agree with you about the sense of nostalgia all these photos seem to evoke. Thats a lovely way of describing them & i think they're definitely shot with that aesthetic & emotion in mind. To me they definitely reflect a kind of carefree utopian ideal of innocence & nostalgia that if you lose yourself in can really affect you. I find most of them strangely melancholic in a way. There's a kind of longing in them for something so perfect that you fear it may never be found. This totally stirs in me the kind of emotion that could easily lead to some sort of journey to try & search for that kind of world, surroundings & emotions. To me that's exactly what the images mean that you painted of packing a bag & living a gypsy-like existence for the summer & all the achingly beautiful images you gave of beaches & forests & drunken dancing & nakedness. I think you've just described what paradise is to me & i don't think i'll truly be able to say i've lived until i've experienced that. I actually think i remember finding similar pictures to those i posted, with the same kind of beautiful look & atmosphere, but showing some kind of dreamy road trip in a VW camper van so i might see if i can find those to post as they were so beautiful:)

It's cool you mentioned those new school polaroid cameras!!:):) I think i know the ones you mean:) I was at a concert recently & was stood next to someone who had one of those Fuji Instax cameras which make instant digital prints which have the same look & feel as polaroids so maybe thats similar to what you have as i know Polaroid themselves make something like that too:):) I think they're a really cool concept & there's something special about the immediacy of the prints you get from them as a lot of people never end up making actual physical prints of photos anymore & as someone who used to cover my bedroom wall with polaroids of all kinds of random stuff (before it broke) i love anything that helps people have that kind of experience which our current generation misses out on cos all life experiences & memories exist only on a screen. After chatting with Devochka the other day about polaroid cameras i turned my house upside down trying to see if i could find any of the polaroids i had from when i was younger & omg in the top of the wardrobe (where all randomness resides) i actually found some & was so happy!!! Everyone tells me i'm far too sentimental & nostalgic but things like that make me really emotional. I always cry when i look through my childhood photo albums.

ps from how beautiful & also how creatively & perfectly captured your photos in your ISM folio are, i think you do have a natural photographic skill Elsa:):) You captured moments perfectly in your shoot & conveyed not just your own beauty but also a strong sense of atmosphere & place too from the locations you used:):)

Lena i'm really glad you had a super time on your adventures!! I had visions of you setting forth into the wilderness with the pioneering free-spirit of an adventurer:) Hope you're enjoying Melbourne…i'm very jealous you're there, it's on my list of amazing places i simply have to visit:) So sorry to hear about your previous relationship…i completely agree that trust is so important in any relationship & so it's wonderful that you've found someone who makes you feel rewarded by life. Trust is the thing that allows you to really be yourself & flourish in a relationship & lets you really give all of yourself to another person. Im happy too that you connected with what i expressed about the anxieties & frustration writing can sometimes make you feel. I loved your genius idea & shall wait with excited anticipation for my membership card for The Frustrated Writers' Club to arrive in the post;)

It's also fascinating that you found my approach to photography interesting & really different. I'm sure this approach has a lot more to do with my own psychology than the art of taking pictures but it certainly speaks to how photography for me is so intrinsically linked & inseparably interwoven with who i am as a person. Aesthetics has always fascinated me & has always been an obsession, whether in relation to myself, or to art, photography, music etc. Emotion has always had a very visual connection for me. I guess i can call myself an aesthete too.

It's so exciting to hear you have more shoots waiting to be released!! I'm very intrigued by the thought of how your ISM video ended on IFM & i cant wait to go find it!!!!:) i just know that that video will be so amazing & beautiful:) And it is very very exciting that you feel you'll work well together with your bf & i hope that the experience of creating beautiful images from all the overflowing of ideas in your mind is both artistically rewarding & really exciting for you both & i know hearts will race around here when you get to post some here:)

Ben xx

ps have no fear, i shall post more beautiful pictures very shortly!!!:):)

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polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Aaron Fever

Sam Hessamian

Michelle Ford

Jerome Nadeau

Sam Guelimi

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viva

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

They're all so beautiful... but does anyone else ever get confused when looking at endless beautiful pictures of beautiful young girls with beautiful young bodies? I have a feeling of... "is this all there is?" the truth is, for me, when I see the oft-proffered alternatives of women of all shapes and sizes and ages with headlines screaming, "SEE!? WE ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL!!" I just don't believe it. They're not beautiful to me, not like what I see above is beautiful.

Those photos, of bodies of all sizes and fat and lumps and loose chins, proclaiming that this too is beautiful, the same flavor of beautiful, that all is equal in beautiful-land, don't look like honesty to me. The look like a kind of denial. And to me when denial comes up, it's because the truth is something which is being avoided... in this case the truth I'm seeing, the truth I also don't want to accept (because it excludes my face and body from the world of beauty) is that young, non-lumpy, proportional, symmetrical women are beautiful, and the rest of us, well... we can be well-lit or gussied up, appreciated for our brains and eyes and the experience of being with us, but let's face it - if a photographer wants to shoot a sexy woman and make beautiful fashion-style photography, he's gonna go for one of these girls above.

And is that really so bad? If everyone is beautiful no one is beautiful. does everyone freakin' need to be so goddamn beautiful all the time?

sorry guys!! maybe it's a downer but I can't help thinking about this stuff.

polaroid

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Viva thanks so much for raising such important issues. To be honest I haven't actually thought about these issues at all while I've been posting these pictures recently & now being confronted with them & realising a lot of things I'm actually really conflicted in how I feel & I've spent the last few hours thinking really deeply about everything. Things like this make me realise just how complex human emotion is.

One side of me is quite horrified & upset with myself because I feel like by posting all these pictures of a kind of unobtainable beauty I'm really scared that I must have in some way become the kind of guy I hate, who unthinkingly contributes to perpetuating an ideal of beauty which is discriminating, exclusive & unrepresentative of real people & which is so unreal it sets everyone up for feelings of self-negativity in comparison. The more I think that I might have in some way been doing that the more it feels like I must have betrayed the reasons that brought me to ISM in the first place, to be part of something wonderful expressing the true beauty of people seen through the truthful, uncorrupting & unmanipulating lens of self expression & self confidence.

The other side of me tries to counterbalance this feeling by telling me to look deeper & analyse the feelings inside that make us find these images so beautiful & examine the role of the photographer in creating them & the role of aesthetics & artistry & creative technique, lighting, film choice or post processing techniques etc etc because I'm pretty certain that when you strip all of those things away & are presented with the truth of how these people look we'd probably find that whilst they're still beautiful, they're not that different from anyone else & that really, like falling for a glossy ad for a product, we're almost predetermined to find them beautiful because they're beautifully shot & the setting & particularly the beautiful colours evoke the atmosphere & emotions that lie at the heart of the response we interpret as beauty. I'd be fascinated to know just how much of why we find these pictures so beautiful is kind of predetermined by how the artist has packaged & presented them to us to influence emotion & imagination through artistic expression & how much of the beauty we see is the beauty in the art.

I think also that beauty means different things to different people but it's very easy to see our own notions of beauty merely slavishly conforming to societal notions which then burden us with the collective guilt of seeing beauty as a clearly defined status allocated to us by the collective inertia of the societal whole whereas if we can learn to see beauty as millions of collections of individual emotions & desires of individual people where for every person we categorise as beautiful or not beautiful (& that includes ourselves) there will be just as many others whose notions of beauty are so very different to our own. Even when we become so sure that certain people are more likely to be classed as beautiful by a larger majority of people (such as in the photos above) that doesn't have to be an either/or exclusive thing. Others can still be found beautiful too & the people like us who find these pictures beautiful aren't making a choice that condemns them to have to find others less beautiful as a result. I see beauty everywhere & in so many things, in perfection & in imperfection, in darkness as well as light & in pain as well as in pleasure & in sadness as well as in happiness.  I hope that when I find pictures like these beautiful I'm not automatically finding others not beautiful. The beauty equilibrium conundrum of if everyone is beautiful then no-one is beautiful only works if everyone thinks the same way collectively which denies the wonder of individuality. I hope that beauty can both best be found & respected in surrendering without guilt to the truth of what we as individuals find beautiful.

I really hope my thoughts have made some sense as I kind of feel responsible for everything you feel Viva as I've been posting so many of these images recently & totally blame myself. I really do feel so strongly that the world of beauty which you say excludes your face & body is not everyone's world of beauty & it most certainly isn't mine. I know this won't help much but I think you're beautiful & I'd choose your ISM folios over the pictures in this thread any day.

Ben xx

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viva

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Hye Ben, please don't feel guilty! I think the images you post are beautiful and I find the models beautiful! I just like to start philosophical shit

It's ok that this kind of beauty is different than the moment of beauty my husband experiences, for example, when he wakes up next to me. A photograph could never convey how seeing me in a moment like that feels for him. So much story, so much love, so much history goes into the beauty that is perceived by a lover's eyes and a set and a model could never match that.

A great photographer could find that kind of emotional beauty in anyone and capture it, but we would see those pictures differently - beautiful yes, such an easy word to throw around, but also moving, touching, deep, emotional. I guess I just really question the word 'beautiful' and the concept of physical beauty and wonder why it's so important that 'every woman is beautiful'.

This is something I challenge my friends about and it's often a very intense and upsetting conversation. I don't want to upset people but I am a philosophy person and I just love asking questions and pushing buttons.

The question here is, are youth and certain proportions our society's view of what is beautiful because we are told that's what's beautiful? Or is it because that's actually what most people find beautiful? Chicken or egg.

commie

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

I don't subscribe to the notion that every woman is or should be beautiful. In this too, there is diversity (both in fact and aspirations).
And I'm not a big fan of politically-correct lies.

But I think you're conflating two issues, viva.
It's one thing to say that women a good bit larger or older than the type you typically see in modelling are beautiful. And it's quite another to say that women of all sizes and ages are equally beautiful.
That distinction feels obvious and very real for me because my aesthetic tastes are more along the lines of what you might call classical or old-fashioned. See: http://rebeccahains.com/2013/11/25/mode … ays-ideal/ For what it's worth, I do not find some of the bodies depicted above all that beautiful. No doubt the women in question could appear very beautiful indeed (meaning: for my taste) if they were shot differently or simply if they put some clothes on. But beautiful isn't the first word that comes to my mind when I look at some of these pictures.
That said, I was surprised by how much I liked some of folios made by the skinnier ladies on ISM. I guess the way they conceive of the shots or use the camera compared to what many professionals do makes a difference. That or they're simply so pretty I've been moved not to be so small-minded about body shapes.

As to the more theoretical matter, I don't think there's a genuine chicken and egg issue here.
We know for a fact tastes are largely cultural... within limits, sure. On the other hand we have good reason to believe that some of the limits we can observe aren't cultural (the tendency to perceive women past child-bearing age as less attractive for instance).

viva

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Commie, thanks for your input. I really like what you have to say.

It makes sense to me to separate those two statements. One upsets me and one does not and I think the reason why I was really troubled by this whole thing was my inability to separate them. I am happy to say that "women a good bit larger or older than the type you typically see in modelling are often beautiful." I am not happy to say that "all women of all sizes and ages are equally beautiful." because it is just not true.

It's not just dishonest, I find the whole thing damaging, that all women must be beautiful. I find it exhausting that part of me honestly feels I have to be beautiful to be worthwhile. I'm lucky now that I (think) I do qualify as conventionally attractive, I'm young and reasonably smoothly shaped and what not, so maybe I will feel differently when it's time to let go of this part of my life. But... I live inside me and look out, I don't spend my life looking at me. Why does it matter if someone else thinks I have a weak chin, wrinkles, baby weight or a lumpy back?

If we like beauty (and we do) it doesn't mean you have to "be" beautiful - not everyone is beautiful and that's ok. It just means you ought to live beautiful, which anyone can do! Surround yourself with inspiration and good smells, colors that make you feel special and fabrics which feel good against your skin. fill your eyes with nature and patterns which please you... living beauty gives you the kind of allure which goes deeper than shape or smoothness of skin, it gives you satisfaction, enjoyment, and appreciation for life.

All women are beautiful is just so weirdly simplistic and object-y to me. I see how it's trying to help but it feels like a consolation prize in a contest I didn't enter, or at least, didn't want to be entered in. It's just really confusing. Who is reassuring me? Why is it about how we look? Why is everyone looking at us anyway? Why does it matter so much? Why can't it be about what we do, or how we feel, or how we live?

So confusing.

commie

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Reassuring... or placating?
I'm afraid you've been entered into that contest, viva. Men have been entered as well but it's not the same thing (not yet anyway). Looks affect a woman's employment prospects for one thing and I don't see that going away any time soon. Strangers are going to judge you not only according to your choice of clothes and footwear or to your grooming habits but also according to your facial features and so forth. Why? Aside from the obvious (it's much easier for strangers to evaluate your looks than how you live for instance) which does not explain the whole matter, I have some just-so stories at hand but really, I'm not sure.
But I know that if one day people wanted to have a fairer society (not really my thing obviously), one of the things they'd need to do is to acknowledge frankly differences in looks. That's the only way to begin to address their effects. Pretending everyone is beautiful supports the status quo.
Ted Chiang wrote a short story (or novella) about this called "Liking What You See" by the way.

I don't want to turn this into a lecture but I wonder on account of your choice of words if your feelings about the "worthwhile" thing might be complicated by the conflation of... wait for it... use value and exchange value. I'm so predictable. ;-) Jargon aside, you are clearly aware there is a difference but maybe the relationship between the two isn't quite clear in your thinking.

Laney

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

http://artfucksme.com/mike-dowson/

http://artfucksme.com/body-language/

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Laney

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

http://artfucksme.com/marc-gabor/

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polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Devochka I love these:):) especially the black & white one, absolutely gorgeous & atmospheric:):) thanks for posting them:):)

Ben xx

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polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Lee Miller, 1930 by Man Ray, Georges Hoyningen-Huene & Theodore Miller

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viva

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Amazing!!

Laney

Administrator

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

These are so beautiful!

The picture of the women touching their lips together reminds me of this photo from Sadi and Abbi's duet

I really like the feel of the photos of Lee Miller in the bath and on the bed. Having her looking away from the camera like that... It makes me feel a little like I'm intruding on a private moment of hers, but she's graceful about it and keeps doing what she was doing, consciously letting me watch her behave as if she were alone. Or something.

It's interesting to see the different ways that people acknowledge the camera, or try to ignore it, or succeed in ignoring it. I'm talking more about videos on IFeelMyself than IShotMyself, and also about when I film myself. I like videos that have this kind of feel. He's obviously conscious of the camera and the contrived nature of the situation, but at the same time he tries to show a natural everyday behaviour. It's interesting.

Last edited by Laney (October 16th, 2014 10:39 AM)

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polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Hi Devochka:) I really love the picture you posted of Sadi & Abbi, it totally reminds me of the photo above too. Moments like that are so full of sensuality & closeness, to just softly rest your lips against each other's as you lie together, it's so beautiful & I love how they gently hold & support each other's heads too, it's such a beautiful & sensual photo.

I really love your description of how the bath & bed photos make you feel at first like an intruder in her private moment but because she's graceful about it she lets you carry on observing her behave as if she were alone. I find your description really beautiful & I'm fascinated by moments like that & I find that concept really interesting too, the way people react to the presence of the camera & how that presence has a physical affect on how we act or whether the heightened sense of self awareness that comes with suddenly knowing you're being observed exists merely in the mind & isn't as visible to others as our inner awareness/anxiety makes us think. I was actually thinking about this exact thing the other day. I was sitting in a cafe & looked up & noticed that a girl with a camera I had seen earlier had walked over & was taking pictures of me & as I looked back down at the newspaper & carried on reading I immediately wondered whether there would be any difference in her photographs after I had noticed her because I suddenly became really hyper-aware of myself, little things like how I was sitting, how my hands rested on the table or how I picked up my coffee cup etc etc & couldn't make up my mind whether outwardly I acted differently knowing I was being observed. I find this concept fascinating & I loved that video of Andy Warhol (i love Andy Warhol & I have posters of his work all over my walls) as it felt to me as I watched it like a kind of much more detailed & longer study of what I felt like in the cafe in that brief moment because even though it was only a brief moment everything I did after being aware of the camera somehow felt contrived & even though I did the same things & acted in the same way as before, somehow the mere knowledge of the presence of the camera made those same actions feel like acting, because of the self awareness & after reading your message that little moment makes me think very much about IFM & trying to picture somehow how I'd think, feel & act if it was me being filmed. I think I would probably take a long time to feel comfortable in that setting & with how to interact or not interact with the camera & would hope that I could in that moment try & learn to replace heightened self awareness of the newness of the situation with heightened self awareness purely of feeling & hope that focussing on sensation & touch or on thoughts & fantasies etc would not only make me feel comfortable but look more natural too. IFM totally fascinates me on a philosophical level as well as being incredibly beautiful (by the way I think your videos are amazing, beautiful & soooooooo hot Devochka) I've never filmed myself before & wonder how it would make me feel to watch it back if I did. I really love watching people's first IFM videos & trying to imagine what they're feeling as they're experiencing everything for the first time. It's a really amazing thing to me & I find it fascinating as well as so exciting & beautiful.

Here's another photo where the subject is looking away from the camera that I really really love. There's something so beautiful & ethereal about photos from this era which use this solarisation technique (which was actually discovered by Lee Miller in Man Ray's darkroom by accident)

Ben xx

Nu Solarisé, 1936 by Gertrude Fehr

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polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Photokama

Cameron Krone

Vladimir Nechyporenko

Petya Gencheva

Wayne Lazorik

Monica Lek

Steeve Juncker

Ana Laura Alaez

Ilenia Urso

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polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Josh Wool

Joe Wehner

ChillPhotographie

Unknown

Pascal Pierrou

Mickey McMichaels

Art T

Daniel Bauer

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Laney

Administrator

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

These are so pretty! I love the photos of girls with underarm hair. I'm sorry I've been away for a while, I've been very busy. I will have more time to talk soon

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polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Hey Devochka:) glad you loved the photos & it's exciting to know you'll be back around here again soon (have missed you!!) Really exciting you have a video in upcoming shoots too!!!:):) Ben xx

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polaroid

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Really love these...

Sal Nunkachov

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pocky

Member

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Whoa, I totally had to do a double take with those last set of gorgeous photos, so similar to the awesome ISM duet by Dwam and Purdey !

Laney

Administrator

Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

Hey Devochka:) glad you loved the photos & it's exciting to know you'll be back around here again soon (have missed you!!) Really exciting you have a video in upcoming shoots too!!!:):) Ben xx

I'm excited for it too! I will be out doing a first aid course on the 5th and 6th, but I'll be back after that

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Kath

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Re: Send me your inspiration lovely people.

apnea in repose by the late Christine Kessler

Nobuyoshi Araki

Selene Nude Profile by stevedietgoedde