Why loving photography killed my love for pictures of boobs.

Jul 6, 2011 by Michael    No Comments    Posted under: Uncategorized

I was at a MALT (Asheville area homebrewing club) meeting a few weeks ago where I brought some of my beer to share, the American IPA that I’m very proud of; it’s the beer that gets fully drained every time we have a party and our friends say “This is so good.  You should make this for the stores, etc.”.  Okay, they don’t actually say “etc.” but you get the idea.  Its good beer, a nice balance of malt and hop, good floral character without being overly bitter, a real crowd pleaser.  And at the MALT meeting, it got nailed, good and solid, for having too much green apple character, which comes from the yeast fermenting at too high of a temperature.

The point of this post isn’t to knock the exceptional palate at MALT, or the comments of the BJCP certified tasters who are part of the club.  They’re absolutely right; I taste it now.  Next time I brew that beer it’ll be in a bucket of chilled water.  Yet, there’s something that’s happening there that I’m not sure I want to be a part of; it’s a rabbit hole I realized I’m not ready to go down.  And it comes down to boobs, and why pictures of boobs no longer excite me.

You see, about six months ago, I started getting more into portraiture, especially the Strobist/external lighting/etc side of portraiture, and I started to study photographs.  And as I learned about lighting and gels and diffuse vs. hard lighting, I started to look at every interesting photograph I saw in a new way; namely, I look at the lighting first, and the subject second.  I’m appreciating the photograph now on primarily technical grounds, seeing what went into its construction more than I’m seeing the finished result.

I wasn’t even aware this was going on until a few weeks ago, until a friend of ours asks Betsey if I can take some boudoir photos of her (for her husband, for his birthday).  After the important logistical questions (Are you sure?  Will he beat me up for this?  How much can you pay?), I dive into the research, because that’s what you do when you have a Ph.D., you read and read and read and figure out how things are done.  And while I’m reading all these boudoir photography guides I’m looking at all these pictures of beautiful women in sexy lingerie (or less) and I realize something: I’m not excited.

Seriously, I’m not that interested or excited in seeing these women in provocative lingerie.  I’m more interested in figuring out how to reproduce the shot.  I’m interested in the gear, the settings, the instruction given to the model (raise your hips and turn them slightly to the camera… no hold on, the rim lighting is a stop low).  I’ve lost the ability to appreciate a picture of boobs or a butt for what it is.  Which kinda sucks.

I mean, the constant search for pictures of boobs and buttocks was the primary activity of my late adolescence and early teenage years.  It was only eclipsed by my search for the real thing once I realized there were women in the world who would actually want to date me.  But still, the pictures were there to fill the gaps when I had that long-distance girlfriend (no, not Canada, but GA to Durham was far enough), or was home from college over the summer, or I had 5 minutes between classes.

And now?  Nothing.  Not even a minor titillating winkle.  Just the cold eye of the semi-wannabe-professional:  42″ inch umbrella shoot-through at 45/45  to subject face at 1/18 power, rear bare strobe at 30 degrees to rear of subject at 1/16 power.  Get her to hold her arm angled that way because otherwise it looks too fat.  Set up a better background.  Switch to your prime lens and drop the aperture to f/2.0.

So there it is.  I love photography, and I love improving my craft.  I’ve started to find ways to monetize that love (is there any greater dream or tragedy than the idea of “monetizing love”?) and, yes, that means adopting a cold, professional eye to the subject at hand.  And through that I’ve killed my love for pictures of boobs.  They just don’t do much for me anymore.

I was never into football, so without boobs and beer, it’s arguable that I’d no longer be a red-blooded American male (by my own calculus I need to take up hunting to restore an overall positive rating in the RBAM index).  Therefore, I must hold on to loving beer.  And that means I probably shouldn’t pursue learning that much more about beer than the occasional tip from other homebrewers.  Just brew what I love, and enjoy it, and make sure my friends enjoy it; I shouldn’t ask for more than that.  And if gaining that extra knowledge, that next level of the craft means that I need to give up on just enjoying a beer for what it is, well, I’ll pass on that round.