Subtitle: A Complete And Practical Guide To Taking Superb Photographs
Author: John Hedgecoe
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books (1984)
ISBN: 0671523260
Category: Art / Photography
Synopsis:
Now, in one stunningly beautiful volume, John Hedgecoe -- expert photographer and author of many best-selling photography books -- explores the techniques and skills needed to interpret the everchanging qualities of the human body.
For centuries, artists and writers have found inspiration in the beauty and power of the human form. John Hedgecoe, award winning photographer and the world's most renowned writer on photograraphy, now presents a masterly portfoliio that will stand as a peerless reference work for photographers everywhere.
In more than 200 color and black and white photographs, Hedgecoe employs a remarkable array of techniques, all fully explained, to evoke the ever-changing nature of the human body.
Includes chapters on:
The nude has occupied the sensibilities of the artist for many centuries, inspiring some of the greatest works of painting and sculpture. At the time of the birth of photography, in 1839, the study of the nude was well established in fine-art training.
Indeed, four centuries earlier Alberti had stated that the basis of the academic procedure is the study of human anatomy. "Begin with bone," he advised, "add muscle, then cover the body with flesh."
The history of the nude as an art form takes us back ultimately to classical Greece, for as Kenneth Clark writes in The Nude: "The Ephebe of Kritios (c. 480 BC) remains the first beautiful nude in art. Here for the first time we feel (the) passionate pleasure in the human body."
Photography embraced the nude as a subject as early as 1840, at the beginning of the most prudish period of the Victorian era. The photographs of nudes exhibited at that time imitated the idealized view of contemporary painting. The sexuality of the model was suppressed beneath a perfectly smooth and waxen surface in order to find acceptance with the prevailing code of respectability.
There were also countless photographs of mothers and children, with titles like Cherub and Seraph, Divine Love, Madonna and Child, and an inexhaustible stream of Nymphs and Venuses, posed in elaborate settings with hazy backgrounds and offering no insight into the human condition.
Another branch of photography provided reference pictures for painters of the human form. Among these were Courbet, Ingres, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, and Gauguin. These photographs comprised sets of poses depicted naturalistically and, because of the speed of the camera, their observation was very accurate.
This accuracy was despised at first because, in addition to the pleasing aspects of the human body, it reproduced the faults. However, in observing without embellishing this type of picture offered a new form of erotic stimulus. Sometimes sold as post-cards to an eager public, these studies of the nude attracted strong censure, so that retouching techniques were introduced to "perfect' the models. Blemishes and pubic hair were removed or concealed and points of beauty were added or accentuated. These techniques were deemed necessary in popular photographic images until the 1950s.
Another method of concealing the unpalatable was the classical tradition of drapery. When used with skill, this technique in fact partly concealed and partly revealed those areas considered offensive to delicate taste, the rhythmic line of the drapery following and emphasizing the contours of the body. Woodland settings, a stream, a fallen tree, were all used to provide a naturalistic context that complemented the beauty of the form. In this way the long evolution of art was re-enacted in a few decades by photography.
The nude survived the onslaught of Victorian modesty precisely because the academic instruction of the day involved drawing from life in the classical tradition. But photography was soon indicted for the decline of standards of drawing-a criticism still current. Nevertheless the medium rapidly embraced all the subjects formerly claimed by painters, and many more. Almost any trying was regarded as a subject and soon the camera's voracious appetite seemed to have devoured all in its sight. This simple tool gave the photographer, apart from the ability to record with speed and accuracy, the addictive power to confer importance and pass judgment.
Like painters, photographers sometimes talk about a certain mystery in their pictures. This idea is often criticized by those who regard the photograph as a simple mirror of reality. Yet, like a mirror image, the subject of a photograph does not exist; it is an illusion.
The mystery in a picture is not normally there for the sake of mystification or as a pretentious ploy. Art without mystery would be like religion without mystery-it could not survive. Visual images also demand faith-the faith that although all is not revealed at first sight, the imagination is nevertheless not being cheated but given the chance to extend itself.
In short, the motive behind the picture is not the creation of a mystery, for the mystery is something perceived by the imagination of the viewer, not deliberately shown.
Notes:
Over 200 color and black & white photographs with complete details on how they were created.
Dustjacket is in great shape and would be rated fine except for a small burn on the front (look to the left of NUDE in the title).
Tags: General | Photography | Photography of the nude | Photo Techniques | Photo Essays | Pictorial works
Edition: 1st American ed.
Printing: 1st printing
Pages: 208
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Fine ( Book condition rating information)
Dustjacket Condition: Good
Cover Price: 24.45 USD
Our Price:
14.99 USD*
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The deal is even sweeter if you factor in the ravages of inflation. We're
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1984, talk about comparing apples
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Shipping Weight: 3 Lbs 12 Ozs
Item #: MDBK-J-00003
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