“Connect, George, connect!”

So, I was just searching online for pictures I like—you know, inspiration, or whatever. And I was purposely trying to find non-nudes. I’ve found tons of nudes I like. The thing is, I tend to find nudes so much more appealing. Or I have a stronger reaction, I guess. It’s not necessarily a sexual reaction (sometimes it is, but not always). And obviously not all nudes do I find appealing. Some are quite appalling.

It’s a little bit of a challenge. The more pictures I look at, the less I find really interesting. There’s certainly stuff that’s nice, or appealing, I guess, but not really interesting.

I always liked nudes. Well…for a long time. (I wrote a little about that before: “childhood myths”.)

Anyway, I just find nudes appealing, both as a viewer and as a photographer. It’s easier for me to find nudes that I like, or that I think are interesting. But, while I definitely enjoy doing nudes, I’m totally willing to do non-nudes. I just wish more people would pose for me, clothed or not. 

I have this suspicion that people who know me, who’ve seen at least some of my facebook posts of my photography, maybe think that I only do nudes. Or maybe that I really only want to do nudes, and somehow that’s my ultimate goal. Perhaps that idea was suggested by the fact that mostly what I was doing for a while was nudes, self portraits. So maybe that’s all some people have seen of my photography. And maybe they think that if they modeled for me, I would be nude. 

Well, I wouldn’t be nude. You could ask the few people who have posed for me. And my actual goal is to make some nice pictures, maybe some interesting pictures. Pictures that I would want to look at, that people would want to look at. And, as I said, I like doing nudes, but I do other stuff too. 

Maybe people I know haven’t seen much of my more recent stuff, or my non-self-portraits. Generally when I post a link to facebook these days, I don’t get many views and no comments—whether it’s this blog of “rants” or my naked blog or my general photography blog or the newest blog that I set up with mostly people who’ve modeled for me. 

Hmm... Maybe I have too many blogs. 

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Photography is often a lonely endeavor. Even if I have someone model for me, that’s only the first part—an hour or 90 minutes of actually interacting with that person. Then they leave, and I have to select and edit the photos. That takes longer than the actual shoot—just me, at my computer, looking at images, playing with contrast and color and all that, making decisions about what looks better this or that. I don’t mind that part of it, but it would be nice to have at least had that hour or so working with another person. Then the result would be pictures I took of another person, instead of just me or some building or trees or whatever. It would be a connection of sorts. 

Maybe it’s something else. Maybe people aren’t reluctant to model for me because of anything to do with nudes. Maybe people just don’t like me. Actually, not maybe; I’m fairly sure about that one. Some people like me well enough, but I’m quite certain that tons of people don't know exactly how to take me, or just don’t care much for me, or just outright dislike me. 

I used to be nice and quiet and shy. I got over that. The nice sand shy part, anyway. I’m still quiet sometimes, especially when I don’t know the people I’m around, or if they’re talking about something I know little about. But I’m certainly willing to tell people what I think even if it’s not nice.

It’s absolutely clear to me that I’m bad at connecting with people. I was never great at it, but it’s harder now than it used to be. When I was in college, people were open to making friends. But now I'm middle-aged. People are just busy with their own lives, and if I’m not already part of that, they just seem to not have much room for me. Okay, fine. But I think that my desire to photograph people is partly an attempt to connect, to participate in the world that I often just don’t feel a part of. 

Another failing attempt to be human.