In my studio a photographer friend is shooting a girl or two. One might be an escort to the other, but they're both dazzling, with great smiles, large hair and breasts, and cute young attitudes. The photographer, Todd, has set up a 4x5 and is scheimfluging everything out of focus except the eyes (which to me seems to be a tremendous waste of those teeth and bosoms), but it's his call, and he's doing a good job of it.

Todd called around 7:30 this morning. I'd gotten home about 4AM after photographing a club for the paper. He works at my pro lab, is a nice guy, and my studio is pretty much open for the use of my friends, so I got up, cleaned the place a bit, and when they arrived, went out to do the laundry. He brought a neat fresnel light he'd picked up cheap. Gonna take a look at it when there's a break in the shooting and the pretty girl puts her clothes back on. Todd's shot here before, usually in miniature format, with his M6's and really nice glass. Don't know if the shoot is for fun, his book, or hers - most likely, all of those things.

From the little snippets I've overheard, and the girl parts I've seen, this shoot is going to have a glamoury feel to it. Todd likes pretty girls. Heck, everyone likes pretty girls. Nothing wrong with that. But a big question here on the web is that of how to best depict pretty girls. Fashion vs. glamour.

I'm sort of a fashion photographer. For a few years I made a living doing that here in San Diego, though, truth be known, most of the work was with modeling schools and agencies. The point of that work was to sell a product - the model. Now I make photographs to please myself. In my eyes, that's creating beauty. The intent isn't to please the model, but to make pictures that please me. And, for me, it is the right thing to do.

From that perspective, it seems that the thing photographers should do is please themselves. Though I'm not a big fan of glamour photography, it would be pretty hypocritical to say that glamour is a bad form, if it's what the photographer really wants to do. It would be hypocritical to say that product photography is a bad form, if that's what the photographer wants to do. Trying to force the square peg into a round hole, either by shooting something that doesn't appeal to the photographer, or by trying to follow some PC path, can't be right. The big problem with PC is that in trying to please everyone, you end up not pleasing yourself. (There's a song in there somewhere...)

"Vision" is an overworked term. A friend, and the most imaginative photographer I've met on the web, advertised himself as a "Visionary." In his case the term applies. He follows his own muse, making significant art. His taste is quirky and superb. Trouble is that it wasn't always appreciated. He's still shooting, but doesn't have as much of a presence on the web as he once had. By following his own vision, and ignoring convention, he came under some criticism by people not qualified to clean his lenses. From experience I know that raises some self doubt. I'm not sure if that's what happened to him, but I know that he's no longer seeking outside approval, at least not on the web. I also know that he's still making wonderful work - following his own vision.

But it's way easier to just go with the crowd. If 60% are doing it one way, it's pretty much a guarantee of acceptance to try to do it the same way. It's a slam dunk that if you don't do it as well as the other guys, you'll be accepted even more readily, as you're not a threat. Think about this. When you sift this all down, it means that acceptance by peers is more likely if one is doing substandard, derivative work. If one does superb original work, that acceptance is less likely. What's a fella to do?

"You can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself." (Remembered the song.) The big question is, "What do I really like?" This question isn't trivial. It requires some thought and some soul searching. it requires some education. And it requires looking and thinking about art or fashion or glamour or sculpture or poetry. It requires thinking about the nature of beauty. And the answers will be different for different people. It's valid that different folks have different ways of making beauty. (I'm convinced that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder - that beauty is a characteristic of the object itself, as in the philosophy of Kant's Critique of Judgement, and that anyone with good taste will recognize the same beauty in each object - but that's a subject of some later article.) Knowing what you like, not being told what you should like, is necessary to please yourself, and is not a trivial pursuit.

Anyway, I had a chance to look at the old Klieg light and I'm going to borrow it for a shoot tomorrow with two girls for some kind of glamoury business adverts. Not sure how I'm going to use it, but it makes wonderful liquid light and I'll figure something out. I guess with that and the other tungstens I've got, I'll be able to blow the circuit breakers, but if they hold I'll be shooting pictures to my own taste. And that's what I think the customer wants anyway, or he wouldn't be asking me to shoot.

The model is Mashulya, photographed in Billings, Montana, in July.

-Don