XXX Porn Star-Portraits on HBO

[michael Allen]

Just caught a special on HBO that featured Timmothy Grnnefeild Sanders shooting Porn Stars for his new book. I'm sure they will replay it.

[Steve Hamley]

Mike,

5 seconds old! There was an article on same in the last "View Camera" magazine.

Steve

[michael Allen]

I know, but this was much better.

[Alan Gage]

I think I saw the book at Barnes and Nobles a couple weeks ago. I was poking around the photography section and there was a book on porn star portraits; but I don't remember who did it. Of course I couldn't resist taking a peak. It wasn't cheesy like I thought it would be. Each subject had 2 pictures of the same pose; one with clothes and one without.

Alan

[Duane Polcou]

I spent a fair amount of time as a commercial photographer photographing "box art" for the soft core porn industry. No small amount of time and effort goes into the workflow from concept to printed imagery to create the illusion of idealized (fantasized?) beauty. TGS's pictures seemed the opposite - Ultra large format images of porn personnel, lit with seemingly no special motive but to show every hair and pore. Perhaps his agenda was to show truth, but I perceived this collection as unflattering at best, and boring at worst. Absolutely nothing was visually stated about these people other than how they looked naked. But that should come as no surprise. Greenfield Sanders only claim to talent is that he knows how to use a big camera.

[Ellis Vener]

Are his portraits ever meant to be "flattering"?

While I'm not that wild about what he does either,, I think you are looking at it with a very different set of standards: Greenfield-Sanders isn't an advertising photographer and you are. I think psychologically it is more interesting and revealing of his perception of personal character than the idealizing (by necessity) work you were doing. At least on the surface (and with a photograph is there anything more than a surface?) he seems to be paying close attention to the individual in front of the camera and not their professional persona. Sort of like the dichotomy between Avedon's advertising/fashion work and his personal projects. Not trying to give offense here because as a fellow professional, I know that what you do is very, very technically demanding and very difficult to do successfully.

I'd like to see the full size prints.

[Duane Polcou]

Ellis, well put. Gotta get rid of that tunnelvision.