Well, I am an amateur photographer (although it has been a keen interest of mine since my early teens), and I have never photographed anyone professionally. Besides, I have no interest whatsoever in the beauty or fashion industries or the world of models, and the world of those for whom attractiveness and beauty is their currency and raison d'être is alien to me and not one I have any interest in.
I accept that in that situation people wish to made made to look good, and, while world that bores me, I can shrug it off.
However, the forms and norms of photographing beautiful and attractive women very often depicts them doing nothing other than being beautiful. When photographed, such clichés abound, and the models are this beautiful (almost bored - there is rarely a genuine laugh, or smile, just a bored, knowing pout) blank canvas. Very often, they appear to have no character and no agency, no inner life - nothing - other than bland good looks and excellent bone structure. Because they are not defined by doing, they are confined to being - just being beautiful. They are simply there to be looked at (projected on) but there is no story to be told in such pictures, because there is no activity - just an invitation of muted or yearning desire.
This is not even the stillness of repose, deep though, concentration or meditation - rather, it is the stillness of emptiness, the stillness of absence, an absence of feeling, of thought and activity. That this beautiful nothing - a life of being projected on, rather than active agency, and competence - is offered to women as an ideal horrifies me.
An yes, while this may be a way to make a living - and good luck to you in achieving that - in a world where we can choose what to post such as in online competitions, that someone would choose a picture (exquisite visually, yes, clean lines, wonderful monochrome and empty elegance) of a beautiful woman holding a camera which she clearly hasn't a clue how to operate - and little interest in, either - appals me.
That gesture of an arm thrown up - apparently artlessly, seemingly languid, but utterly artificial and affected, a ghastly staple of this sort of photography - but who on earth actually uses that gesture in real life? Nobody does, because it is a gesture which actually achieves nothing - and is a complete waste of time and energy
Of your photographs where women actually did something, the very first one was excellent, and I also liked the shot from the rear in the art gallery.
Sigh. No comment.
Now, this is more like it. A real woman using a real camera, and clearly with complete competence. Not, yes, as beautiful as the model photographed earlier, but I know who I would prefer to have a coffee or a drink with.
I suppose that my issue is two-fold; the preponderance of beautiful women photographed by men (the old 'male gaze' stuff) - as though this was the only interesting thing worth recording about a woman - and, secondly, the fact that there seems to be a clear distinction between the emptiness of the lives of the beautiful people and the interesting stuff that the rest of the world gets up to. Well, if you must photograph beautiful people (women) at least try to incorporate some degree of activity or agency - 'beautiful' and 'interesting' should not be mutually exclusive when photographing an attractive person.
