The Manual of Nude Photography

There are a great many approaches to nude photography - it is in many ways one of the more subjective styles of photography- and there is probably a greater polarization between the attitudes towards the way it is done and the way it is seen than there is with other subjects.

The sexual connotations of the nude are also stronger in photography than in other art mediums. This may well be because the more ‘realistic’ qualities of a photograph make it easier for the viewer to identify a photographic image more closely with a real person than a statue or a painting allows, but whatever the reason, nude photography is undoubtedly most widely used in the more personal and sexual way.

The ‘pin-up’ approach is in many ways the most basic style of nude photography, in which the personality and sexuality of the model form an important element of the image, and much of the photographer’s skill is directed towards distilling these elusive elements into a form that can be recorded on film. This approach was initiated in the Victorian era in the form of postcards, evolved and matured in the heyday of Hollywood, and is alive and well today in the medium of the pin-ups in popular newspapers and the ‘girlie’ magazines. Today, many pictures of this type are very explicit and their acceptability in terms of taste can often be questionable.
As a consequence, a style of photography has evolved in which the erotic and sexual nature of the image is made more acceptable by the use of more calculated and contrived photographic techniques to create a degree of mood or ambiguity. Whereas the photographic techniques and aesthetic approach to the basic pin-up picture are very simple and direct, the more atmospheric pictures of photographers such as David Hamilton, Sam Haskins, and Helmut Newton are far more complex in both conception and execution. This style of photography uses the model both as an individual and
simply as an element in a composition in which the setting or location plays an equally dominant role.