Nude photography
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The English used in this article may not be easy for everybody to understand. (May 2012) |
Nude photography is a style of art photography which wants to show the naked human body as a form of art. This is different form erotic photography, which has an erotic component, and totally different from pornography which only focuses on sexual arousal. For many photographers, nude photography is a study of the human body, much like some paintings did. Photographing a person to be recognised is called portrait. Nude photography focuses on showing the human body, often the face is not visible.
In general, nude photography is a planned image, not a snapshot. Nude photography wants to show a stylised depiction of the human body. Photographers sometimes use extremes of light and shadow, oiled skin, and shadows falling across the body to show the texture and structure of the body.
Photographing (part of) a naked body is not necessarily nude photography.
Early photographers often showed the nudity of women like the one we see here by Félix-Jacques Moulin. Many, like Edward Weston, Ruth Bernhard and Jerry Avenaim, preferred to show the lines of a body as a piece of art. They used the terms art nude and figurenude form painting to avoid suggestions that their works were erotica or pornography.
