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Kids feel this, even if they can't articulate it in quite that way. Time and again, when interviewed about being photographed, they talk about the photography as a way of becoming less anonymous. They like the admiration; they like the thought that somebody thinks that they can be art. A. D. Coleman gave a favourable review of the book in The New York Observer, stating: "Sturges sustains a delicate balance on a very precarious wire ... His struggle is to observe and render his subjects in all of their complexities, trembling on the cusp of change. The result of this long-term, communal effort is one of the most clear-eyed, responsible investigations of puberty and the emergence of sexuality in the medium's history, making a metaphor of the metamorphosis from child to adult." [2] Attempted censorship [ edit ] When questioned regarding the prosecution, Sturges stated it would waste taxpayers' money, as the photographs "are not done flirtatiously" and have been displayed in major museums. [6] Sturges responded to the indictment labelling the books as "obscene material containing visual reproduction of persons under 17 years of age involved in obscene acts" by stating "This is pretty chilling language because, in fact, the people in my pictures are not engaged in any acts at all. They are living in contexts that are naturist, which is to say that when it's warm and people feel like it, they don't wear clothes", [7] also stating "To find the work obscene, you'd have to find homo sapiens between 1 and 17 inherently obscene, and I find that obscene." [5]
No two people take on the information of being admirable and being admired in the same way. I can't begin to know the psychological ramifications of what I do in the long run. I don't live long enough. It may be that the most important ramifications of what I do will come on my models in their 60s and 70s, when they look very different than they do in the pictures now, and when they will have the photographs as a reminder. It may be that reminder is painful. I hope not. I hope that they can continue to accept themselves and their bodies as they change and grow, as continuously beautiful. I can't answer that question with any kind of certainty; I just don't get to know.Sturges: I'm always saying, 'Are you cold?' 'Do you want to stop?' 'Have you had enough?' 'I don't want you just to be here; I want you to be really glad to be here.' Language like that all the time. With some kids, it isn't necessary anymore because we know each other so well. It's just not a problem. Grand Jury Indicts Barnes & Noble for Books Depicting Nude Children". Los Angeles Times. February 19, 1998 . Retrieved February 19, 2013. Sturges: Sexually. Before 18, nobody has anything in their pants; after 18, they have everything in their pants. It's ridiculous. The truth is that from birth on we are, to one extent or another, a fairly sensual species. There isn't a person alive who doesn't like being caressed. Children masturbate as early as 1 1/2 or 1 year old. They do it spontaneously and without any thought that there's anything evil about making themselves feel good. That's a sensual experience in their lives, one that should remain entirely the property of the child, as it were. Nobody is going to argue, last of all myself, that it should become involved to any extent in any adult experience of sexuality. But the truth is that Homo sapiens is a sensual species. I think all species are, to one degree or another. My hope is that the work is in some way counter-pinup. A pinup asks you to suspend interest in who the person is and occupy yourself entirely with looking at the body and fantasizing about what you could do with that body, completely ignoring how the person might feel about it. That's of no interest to people who make pinup photography. They don't care who the woman is, what tragedies or triumphs that person's life might encompass. That's of absolutely no relevance. For Sturges, these changes are part of the continuing saga of legal challenges and controversy surrounding his work. On April 25, 1990, FBI agents and San Francisco police officers raided his studio, seizing his cameras, his prints, his computer--everything relating to his occupation as an internationally recognized fine-art photographer. Art communities, both in San Francisco and nationally, rallied around Sturges, his work and the legitimacy of respectful nude photography of children and adolescents. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors denounced the raid and a San Francisco grand jury refused to indict Sturges on any charges.
However, not everything is so bad in the career of a photographer. There are also those who support the man, and his works are highly appreciated. For example, the American writer Jennifer McMahon used Sturges’ photos to decorate the covers of her three books. Besides, they even made a film about the man’s life, which was released in Germany in 2008, and in 2016 it could be seen by Russian viewers. Private life Supporters of Randall Terry and his organization, Operation Rescue--best known for their protests against abortion clinics--take credit for bringing the books to the attention of prosecutors by such actions as physically destroying books in Barnes & Noble stores. The recent indictment in Alabama describes the work of Sturges and British photographer David Hamilton as "obscene material containing visual reproduction of persons under 17 years of age involved in obscene acts." Sturges: Well, yes and no. My work was doing pretty well, and now it is doing dramatically better. Is that because people are collecting the pictures because of their notoriety? Or is that simply because people are more aware of the work, and like it, having become aware of it? I don't know. I'll never get to know. People need to realize that a cultural war has been declared here," Sturges says strongly. "A virulent, aggressive minority has decided that Americans don't know themselves what it is they should see, and need to be protected by people who are wiser than they are, even if they are only a tiny sliver of the population. This represents a whole new level of attention to the arts by repressive forces. It's very scary, and it has to be withstood." That dichotomy between the public consumption of the work and my intent and practice in making it is an uneasy one for me, on occasion.a b Boxer, Sarah (March 4, 1998). "Critic's Notebook; Arresting Images of Innocence (or Perhaps Guilt)". The New York Times . Retrieved February 17, 2013. Beem, Edgar Allen (January 3, 2008). "Catching Up with; The Way of All Flesh". Photo District News. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 . Retrieved February 23, 2013. All my life I've taken photographs of people who are completely at peace being what they were in the situations I photographed them in. In very many cases that was without clothes, and it simply was not an issue. They were without clothes before I got there, and they were without clothes when I left. That was just a choice that they had made, and one they didn't even think about; they were simply more comfortable that way. It never occurred to me that anybody could find anything about that perverse. It was a total surprise to me, which is obviously evidence of my having been pretty profoundly naive about the American context. But over the course of my life I've spent so much time in this context that I'd forgotten that Homo sapiens isn't always like that, which is indeed naive of me. I'm guilty of extraordinary naiveté, I suppose. But it's a naiveté that I really don't want to abandon, not even now. The Eye Mama book is a photographic portfolio showcasing the mama narrative and the mama gaze, what female and non-binary photographers see when they look at, and into the home. In our society there's so much shame attached to sexuality in a lot of social milieus that sexual abusers here on the average have had something like 70 or 100 victims before they're finally caught. In Holland where the age of sexual consent is, I think, 13, the average is vastly lower--it's like three or four. That's because people tell much sooner, because shame is absent.
Sturges: Right. They control their photographs because I don't let them sign model releases. I urge them never to sign a model release for anybody unless they have been paid specifically to do a specific job on a contractual basis, for an advertising agency or something. Who knows how they're going to change? I don't want to ever be guilty of making assumptions about those changes. They might marry a Methodist minister from Minnesota and have a very conservative life. It's not inconceivable that at some point in the future they might decide that these pictures embarrass them. That's never happened to me, but the control, the power to decide whether that happens or not, shouldn't be mine--it should be the kids', and that's where it stays. It creates a very complex life for me, I promise you. When I want to use a picture in a book, I have got to call foreign countries, find people, explain the context. My phone bills are astronomical sometimes.Arthur Tress (b. 1940) is a singular figure in the landscape of postwar American photography. His seminal series, The Dream Collector, depicts Tress’s interests in dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and the unconscious and established him as one of the foremost proponents of magical realism at a time when few others were doing staged photography. Now, on the second level, there's what happens after the photographs are made. But I no longer control that. It's not at all hard for me to imagine that there are some aspects of society that will buy my book, buy my photographs, who will look at them and have 'impure thoughts.' There are also people out there who buy shoe ads and Saran Wrap and all manner of things, who have impure thoughts. I can't really do anything about those people, except hope that, if they attend to my work closely enough, that ultimately they'll come to realize that these are real people. Metro: Having been through all that you've been through, I can't imagine how you can take photographs now without having legal concerns somewhere in your mind. My work hopefully works exactly counter to that. That's my ambition: that you look at the pictures and realize what complex, fascinating, interesting people every single one of my subjects is. They're all different. I don't photograph any two people who are remotely the same. Returning home in 1970, Sturges moved to Vermont, and there went to Marlborough College, where he studied pedagogical psychology. After receiving his education, the young man did not start working in his specialty. He travels around educational institutions and part-time, teaching the art of photography. Photo Art
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