The last of our Bare Beach Babies three-parter. We can’t really have a proper discussion of this without including Jock Sturges, and so we’ll begin with him. Now, there are simply too many images by Sturges that fit this description to include them all here, so I’ll provide a few examples. Sturges’s modus operandi is to focus his camera on nudist and naturist girls starting when they are very young and following the blossoming of their bodies from prepubescence, through adolescence, and finally to the young women they become. His photographs, taken with a large-format camera, have been controversial from the get-go, capturing the changing female body in plain but elegant terms. That anyone would equate Sturges’s work with pornography seems to speak more about the minds of his critics than it does about his photographs. Like the girls themselves, these images are holistic and stripped bare–stripped of pretentions, semiotic cues, and the language of modern sexuality. Unless one equates nudity with sexuality across the board (an odd notion to be sure, because it would mean that any image of a naked child is de facto pornography) if there is any eroticism to be found in these pictures, the fault lies clearly with the viewer rather than the pictures themselves. Perhaps in the end the real “problem” then is that these pictures force us to confront an uncomfortably reality about ourselves.
Jock Sturges – Girls on the Beach, Montalivet, France
Jock Sturges – Fanny, Montalivet, France
Jock Sturges – (I’m not sure about the title, but I do know the girl in the foreground is Misty Dawn.)
Jock Sturges – Iris, Montalivet, France (1991)
Jock Sturges – Fanny, Montalivet, France
And a clear admirer and follower of Sturges:
Hervé Szydlowski – Vetu de nu – 2006, Montalivet (1)
Hervé Szydlowski – Vetu de nu – 2006, Montalivet (2)
A modern Impressionist:
Charles Warren Mundy – Little Girl at the Beach
Holger Frohlich – Am Atlantik
Holger Frohlich – Am Antlatik – Frankreich
Jean Marie Drouet – Bain bleu
Jean Marie Drouet – Bain bleu brassards jaunes
Nils-Johan Norenlind – Title Unknown
Andrew Pashis – Title Unknown
Joseph Sherly Sheppard – Nude Beach
Mastadont – Lady Mary
Paul Roberts – On the Beach
Tsur Pelly – Naked Bedouin Children Bathing in the Red Sea
Sally Mann – Punctus (After the Swim)
Tierney Gearon – Untitled (2000)
Ilse de Wit – Meisje aan zee
Zorgy – Road from the Beach
Amadelio: Jock Sturges interview (archived)
re Zorgy’s picture. The tan lines on the older girl are so distinct they seem almost etched. Now that she is leaving the beach she can take the swimsuit off. When I see this picture, I can’t help but think about that Tom and Jerry cartoon where they wear swimsuits on the beach, but are naked the rest of the time. I love this one so much I made a jigsaw puzzle of it on my computer.
About the Tsur Pelly picture of the Bedouin children:
Notice how customs of appearance vary so much among different cultures.
The girl’s hair seems to be shorter than the boy’s hair.