Photographic Evidence

A powerful aspect of photography is the tight relationship between image and what was in front of the camera at the moment of exposure. Leaving aside (for now) Photoshop and other “tricks”, when we see a photo, we can more or less extrapolate from the two dimensional image to the three dimensional reality that photo records. And although there is a huge amount of subjectivity in even the most “truthful” photograph, that analogous relationship between event and image has a tremendous impact on how we understand the image we see. As much as we understand that a photo doesn’t tell the whole truth, we understand that it tells a lot of truth.

Twenty-plus years ago, as a student, I looked at the classic tourist shot “Here I am, in front of this place that I’ve travelled hundreds or thousands of miles to see” as painfully unsophisticated. If you want a shot of the Colosseum, or Times Square, or whatever, why not get the professionally rendered image available for 25 cents on a postcard?

Now I get it. Not only do I take those sorts of photos when we travel, when I come across people making these sorts of photos, I’ll always stop and offer to take the picture for them, so that no one in the group ends up being left out. (I also take a secret pleasure in knowing that their “Here we are” photo might be just turn out a little better than average.)

The photo above is of yours truly, taken a little more than a year ago when I was bringing our boat up the Eastern Seaboard. After more than four months of living aboard, I was in the best shape I had been in years; lean, tan, strong. I was also away from my wife Peggy and wanted to maintain an erotic connection with her across the distance. A camera-phone, the full-length mirror; not much concern for lighting, a little concern for odds and ends in the background, a little concern for framing (this image is a cropped version of the one I sent my wife!)

The meaning in this photo doesn’t come from any great finesse with the Art of Photography. The meaning comes from the simple but powerful ability of a photo to serve as evidence, of a time, a place, a feeling, an intention, “Here I am. I’m thinking of you. I miss you. I’ll be home soon.” A few buttons pushed, and the photo, and all that meaning travels almost instantly from a boat off the Carolina coast back to my wife in New York.

How about you? Have you ever used a photo in a similar way? If so, I’d love to hear about it; on your blog, in the comments here, or by e-mail [tony at camera play for couples dot com].

This is what I’m talking about! (Mine!)

I am still working out in my head how we’re going to be handling other peoples images here at CameraPlayForCouple.com. When you decide to give yourself to someone physically, you make that decision right there and then, for that person, for that time. Photos are different. Making a photograph carries with it a potential loss of control over whom you share yourself with and in what context.

So with that in mind, I am not posting a very very wonderful photograph from 13 Messages. Instead, and for now, I am posting a link:

Mine!

There are so many things I like about this photo, so very many. But I’m going to save getting into that until we’ve worked out to my satisfaction a policy for posting other people’s photos that is consensual, non-transactional, preserves (as much as possible) peoples’ control over context, while hoping to also preserve the structural integrity of this blog.

So for the time being, click the link and enjoy this very wonderful photo. I defy you to look at it without being hit with a million and one ideas for photos of your own!

A new beginning for an old idea.

Hello and welcome. I am Tony Comstock, and I am a filmmaker and photographer. I want to tell you about two very important things that happened when I first started went “online” about 15 years ago. 

The first was that I met my wife Peggy. This was back before the World Wide Web, so when I say I “met” her, what I really mean is I noticed a post she made on a BBS, and I sent her a note, and from there we began to chat using an old unix program called nTalk. There was no exchanging pictures back then, let alone video chatting. The first time I saw her was after months and months of chatting, when I met her for lunch. I liked what I saw, and  I guess she did too. We were married two years later.

The other thing that happened around this same time is that the internet went from being a text-only environment to a graphical environment. The first graphical browser, Mosaic, came out, then Netscape, and then the whole internet explosion. And somewhere inside of that explosion, people started posting sexy pictures of themselves, sometimes privately, sometimes in semipublic places, and sometimes out for the whole world to see.

I was fascinated, captivated and turned on by this sudden access to DIY erotic images.  In the wake of the Meese Commission, and the unwholesome alliance of social conservatism and the radical anti-sex wing of feminism professional erotic image making had died a slow, ugly death. But these homemade expressions of sexuality,  these mementos of sexual joy seemed to offer a way forward.

I thought, “What if I could capture the enthusiasm and authenticity of these pictures, but bring my skills as professional filmmaker to the process?” 15 years later and with 6 well-loved erotic documentary films to our credit I’m pleased with how we answered that question. We’ve proved that sexual imagery doesn’t have to be lurid or phony or tacky, but neither does it have be arid or sterile or joyless.

I’m coming back to do-it-yourself erotic image making for a few reasons. The first is simply that I get a lot of requests from magazines to offer my expertise on this subject. But bad advice is worse than no advice, and they always screw it up, so we’ve stopped saying yes. This blog is a way to go around the gatekeepers (aka magazine editors) and put my ideas about how people can have fun with cameras into the world directly.

Secondly, really amazing things have happened with the technology. I bought a little digital camera last year and was flabbergasted to find out it would also shoot up to 3 hours of full-screen video. This laptop I’m typing on right now came with a suite of software for image editing and video editing that I would have killed for 20 years ago. The tools that ordinary people have in their hands are really impressive, and with just a dash of technical knowledge, a little insight into the “Art of Seeing,” and a sense of play, it’s possible to use these very ordinary tools to make images you’ll treasure; mementos you’ll be glad to have 5, or 10, or 20 years from now.

The last thing is that once again I feel like commercial erotic image making is at a dead end, and once again I feel like the DIY approach offers a way forward; a way to see the collision of sex and image-making as joyful and consensual, and most of all playful. A way to show that making love is as much a part of our life as children’s birthday parties, or weddings, or company softball games, and every bit as worthy of being memorialized with images.

So if you’re nodding your head and saying “Yes, Tony’s right.” please add this blog to your RSS feed, or your blog roll, or tell a friend. If being an independent filmmaker means anything, it means being inventive, and I have 20+ years of inventive ideas that can make memorializing your erotic life easier, more satisfying, and more fun!

I’d also like to invite you to share your ideas and experiences with me, either just privately, or for publication. You can reach me in comments here, or tony at camera play for couples dot com.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ll keep reading!