Erotic photography

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Woman with camera. Photo by Alfred Cheney Johnston, 1920 or before

Erotic photography is a style of art photography of an erotic and even a sexually suggestive or sexually provocative nature. Erotic photography is generally a composed image of a subject in a still position. Though the subjects of erotic photography are usually completely or mostly unclothed, that is not a requirement. Erotic photography should be distinguished from nude photography, which contains nude subjects not necessarily in an erotic situation, and pornographic photography, which is of a sexually explicit nature. Pornographic photography generally does not claim any artistic or aesthetic merit.

Since the 1960s erotic photography began to be less commonly referred to as such, to be increasingly described as glamour photography. Erotic photography before the 1960s is sometimes referred to as vintage photography.

Erotic photographs are normally intended for commercial use, including mass-produced calendars, pinups and for men's magazines, such as Playboy, but sometimes the photographs are intended to be seen only by a subject's partner. The subjects of erotic photographs may be professional models, celebrities or amateurs. Very few well-known entertainers posed nude for photographs. The first entertainer to pose nude for photographs was the stage actress Adah Isaacs Menken (1835–1868). On the other hand, a number of well-known film stars have posed for pinup girl photographs and been promoted in photography and other media as sex symbols. Traditionally, the subjects of erotic photographs have been female, but since the 1970s erotic images of men have also been published.

Beginnings

• 
  19th-century nude photographs featured the ideal body of the time, frequently with trimmed pubic hair
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  Erotic postcard, 1919
• Woman with camera. Photo by Alfred Cheney Johnston, 1920 or before
  Woman with camera. Photo by Alfred Cheney Johnston, 1920 or before
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  The warm relationship Bellocq had with his sitters is reflected in their seeming lack of self-consciousness

Before 1839, depictions of nudity and erotica generally consisted of paintings, drawings and engravings. In that year, Louis Daguerre presented the first practical process of photography to the French Academy of Sciences. Unlike earlier photograph methods, his daguerreotypes had stunning quality and did not fade with time. Artists adopted the new technology as a new way to depict the nude form, which in practice was the feminine form. In so doing, at least initially, they tried to follow the styles and traditions of the art form. Traditionally, in France, an académie was a nude study done by a painter to master the female (or male) form. Each had to be registered with the French government and approved or they could not be sold. Soon, nude photographs were being registered as académie and marketed as aids to painters. However, the realism of a photograph as opposed to the idealism of a painting made many of these intrinsically erotic.

In Nude Photography, 1840–1920, Peter Marshall notes: "In the prevailing moral climate at the time of the invention of photography, the only officially sanctioned photography of the body was for the production of artist's studies. Many of the surviving examples of daguerreotypes are clearly not in this genre but have a sensuality that clearly implies they were designed as erotic or pornographic images".

The daguerreotypes were not without drawbacks, however. The main difficulty was that they could only be reproduced by photographing the original picture since each image was an original and the all-metal process does not use negatives. In addition, the earliest daguerreotypes had exposure times ranging from three to fifteen minutes, making them somewhat impractical for portraiture. Unlike earlier drawings, action could not be shown. The poses that the models struck had to be held very still for a long time. Because of this, the standard pornographic image shifted from one of two or more people engaged in sex acts to a solitary woman exposing her genitals. The cost of the process also limited the spread of the technology. Since one picture could cost a week's salary, the audience for nudes mostly consisted of artists and the upper echelon of society. It was cheaper to hire a prostitute and experience the sex acts than it was to own a picture of them in the 1840s. Stereoscopy was invented in 1838 and became extremely popular for daguerreotypes, including the erotic images. This technology produced a type of three dimensional view that suited erotic images quite well. Although thousands of erotic daguerreotypes were created, only around 800 are known to survive; however, their uniqueness and expense meant that they were once the toys of rich men. Due to their rarity, the works can sell for more than ₤GB 10,000.

In 1841, William Fox Talbot patented the calotype process, the first negative-positive process, making possible multiple copies. This invention permitted an almost limitless number of prints to be produced from a glass negative. Also, the reduction in exposure time made a true mass market for pornographic pictures possible. The technology was immediately employed to reproduce nude portraits. Paris soon became the centre of this trade. In 1848 only thirteen photography studios existed in Paris; by 1860, there were over 400. Most of them profited by selling illicit pornography to the masses who could now afford it. The pictures were also sold near train stations, by traveling salesmen and women in the streets who hid them under their dresses. They were often produced in sets (of four, eight or twelve), and exported internationally, mainly to England and the United States. Both the models and the photographers were commonly from the working class, and the artistic model excuse was increasingly hard to use. By 1855, no more photographic nudes were being registered as académie, and the business had gone underground to escape prosecution.

Eadweard Muybridge: Woman walking with fishing pole (detail)

The Victorian pornographic tradition in Britain had three main elements: French photographs, erotic prints (sold in shops in Holywell Street, a long vanished London thoroughfare, swept away by the Aldwych), and printed literature. The ability to reproduce photographs in bulk assisted the rise of a new business individual, the porn dealer. Many of these dealers took advantage of the postal system to send out photographic cards in plain wrappings to their subscribers. Therefore, the development of a reliable international postal system facilitated the beginnings of the pornography trade. Victorian pornography had several defining characteristics. It reflected a very mechanistic view of the human anatomy and its functions. Science, the new obsession, was used to ostensibly study the human body. Consequently, the sexuality of the subject is often depersonalised, and is without any passion or tenderness. At this time, it also became popular to depict nude photographs of women of exotic ethnicities, under the umbrella of science. Studies of this type can be found in the work of Eadweard Muybridge. Although he photographed both men and women, the women were often given props like market baskets and fishing poles, making the images of women thinly disguised erotica. Parallel to the British printing history, photographers and printers in France frequently turned to the medium of postcards, producing great numbers of them. Such cards came to be known in the US as "French postcards".

French influence

The initial appearance of picture postcards (and the enthusiasm with which the new medium was embraced) raised some legal issues that can be seen as precursors to later controversies over the internet. Picture postcards allowed and encouraged many individuals to send images across national borders, and the legal availability of a postcard image in one country did not guarantee that the card would be considered "proper" in the destination country, or in the intermediate countries that the card would have to pass through. Some countries refused to handle postcards containing sexual references (in seaside postcards) or images of full or partial nudity (for instance, in images of classical statuary or paintings). Many French postcards were produced with naked women in erotic poses. These were sold as postcards but whose primary purpose was not for sending by post because they would have been banned. Street dealers, tobacco shops, and a variety of other vendors bought the photographs for resale to tourists.

Instead, nude photographs were marketed in a monthly magazine called "La Beauté" that targeted artists looking for poses. Each issue contained 75 nude images which could be ordered by mail, in the form of postcards, hand-tinted or sepia toned.

Early 20th century

The early 1900s saw several important improvements in camera design, including the 1913 invention of the 35 mm or "candid" camera by Oskar Barnack of the Ernst Leitz company. The Ur-Leica was a compact camera based on the idea of reducing the format of negatives and enlarging them later, after they had been exposed. This small, portable device made nude photography in secluded parks and other semi-public places easier, and represented a great advance for amateur erotica. Artists were enamored with their new ability to take impromptu photos without carrying around a clunky apparatus.

Early 20th-century artist E. J. Bellocq, who made his best known images with the older style glass plate negatives, is best remembered for his down-to-earth pictures of prostitutes in domestic settings in the Storyville red light district of New Orleans. In contrast to the usual pictures of women awkwardly posed amid drapery, veils, flowers, fruit, classical columns and oriental braziers, Bellocq's sitters appear relaxed and comfortable. David Steinberg speculates that the prostitutes may have felt at ease with Bellocq because he was "so much of a fellow outcast."

Julian Mandel became known in the 1920s and 1930s for his exceptional photographs of the female form. Participating in the German "new age outdoor movement," Mandel took numerous pictures in natural settings, publishing them through the Paris-based studios of A. Noyer and PC Paris. A Johns Hopkins University scholarship was named in his honor.

Another noteworthy nude photographer of the first two decades of the 20th century was Arundel Holmes Nicholls. His work, featured in the archives of the Kinsey Institute, is artistically composed, often giving an iridescent glow to his figures. Following in Mandel's footsteps, Nicholls favored outdoor shots.

Many photographs from this era were intentionally damaged. Bellocq, for instance, frequently scratched out the faces of his sitters to obscure their identities. Some of his other sitters were photographed wearing masks. Peter Marshall writes, "Even in the relatively bohemian atmosphere of Carmel, California in the 1920s and '30s, Edward Weston had to photograph many of his models without showing their faces, and some 75 years on, many communities are less open about such things than Carmel was then."

Later 20th century

Betty Grable's famous pin-up photo

Nude photographers of the mid-20th century include Walter Bird, John Everard, Horace Roye, Harrison Marks and Zoltán Glass. Roye's photograph Tomorrow's Crucifixion, depicting a model wearing a gas mask while on a crucifix caused much controversy when published in the English Press in 1938. The image is now considered one of the major pre-war photographs of the 20th century.

During the Second World War, pin-up girl photographs reached a wide audience. Unlike earlier erotic photographs, whose subjects were usually anonymous, a number of well-known film stars posed for pin-up photographs and they were promoted as sex symbols. The emphasis was initially on bare legs, short skirts or swim suits and shapely figures; but in the 1950s such photos started to show naked breasts. Playboy magazine, founded in 1953, achieved great popularity and soon established the market for men's and lifestyle magazines. Erotic photography soon became closely associated with it and gained increasing public attention. Founded in 1965, Penthouse magazine went a step further than Playboy and was the first to clearly display genitals; initially covered with pubic hair. The models looked usually directly into the camera, as if they would enter into relationship with the mostly male viewers. In the 1970s, in the mood of feminism, gender equality and light humour, magazines such as Cleo included male nude centrefolds, usually of celebrities.

The spread of the Internet in the 1990s and increasing social liberalization brought a renewed upsurge of erotic photography. There are a variety of print and online publications, which now compete against the major magazines (Playboy, Penthouse) and cater for the diverse tastes. There are a large number of online erotic photography sites, some of which describe themselves or are so described by others as pornography. Where the subject is presented in a romantic or sexually alluring manner, it may be described as glamour photography.

See also

• Erotic art
• Glamour photography
• History of erotic depictions
• Nude photography

Further reading

• Hix, Charlesm and Michael Taylor. "Dream Lovers", in their Male Model: the World Behind the Camera (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979; ISBN 0-312-50938-3), p. [164]-186.