I do that stuff!

I was poking around some more way too late at night and came across the adipositivity project site. I thought the photos were really cool. My thing is that I can create 2 or 3 photos that look really artistic and incredible in the way that those photos do, but I only work with people who have accepted me as the guy who is going to create the best photo of them in existence. They don't have any moral hang-ups about being photographed from head to toe fully nude. I've been told in the past that I was "lucky" to ever find a single bbw or ssbbw who would pose nude for me at all. I would not say that I was very lucky, but I sure did eventually find a few, maybe 2 per year, but I have had the opportunity to create a lot of work in that time. I am really fortunate to have regular access to at least one model with a pretty stunning look, and I am free to create whatever type of images I wish to explore because there is no fear hovering over the model about someone "finding out" or "finding them on the net". I am so very fortunate to have occasionally had an opportunity to work with someone who trusted that i was "for real". I realize though that what really happened was that I made myself available for that purpose to someone who was actually hoping to get some good new pics done, and they found me just charismatic enough to give me a chance. :)

I don't want to be sexist by saying it right off the bat, but I sometimes think it is a lot easier for a female photographer to get female (or male for that matter) models interested in a project. Over the time that I have spent reading blogs and watching the kind of photos that get submitted, I am seeing some real fear on the part of those who are brave enough to post a photo that just shows part of them. I don't blame the shy people who are scared to post photos though, because I am very well aware of the potential for negative feedback. Because I have access to some comments left on a youtube video, I can illustrate just how hardcore nasty the anonymous general public can be about size. I realize that in order for someone to feel at ease they truly have to "not care".

This will be a short post, and I don't even scratch the surface that I start to bring up, but I just had to get it out of the way that I have seen so many beautiful, artistic projects that feature bbws and I have regrets that I didn't start the process of submitting certain photos here and there over the past decade so that I might have had more opportunity to work with people who were moved by the work they saw. I realize that at least some part of why it's so difficult to get plus and super-sized women to work on these artistic photo projects is not because they are uncomfortable with their bodies, but because they are uncomfortable with the possibility for ridicule or shame being brought on them for even allowing the photo to be taken and therefore exist at all.

I'm just very fortunate that there exists a certain "type" of woman that has exhibitionist tenancies and is way beyond the point of giving a damn about what other people think. They are flashing boobs at mardi gras, flashing on the Jerry Springer show, flashing to their webcam while in a chat program, and sharing photos with people they chat with online to tempt and tease. These brave souls took the leap of faith and allowed those first images to be created so that they could be encouraged later to create more. If any guy who was lucky enough to get to see a revealing photo was dumb enough to say anything negative it would be him that missed out, not her!

I believe in a "yin and yang" type philosophy, where there is a balance to all things. I will try not to repeat that fact over and over, but it is important to remember that this balance is very real. I really do feel that the more negative press that is given to obesity, the more that people will be compelled to make a statement in a direction that is not expected. I mean, keep pounding out all this anti-obesity propaganda and eventually more skinny people will be like "man, they're already fat and have enough problems maybe we should let them be". I have been discouraged for a long time from making a blog because I felt as if my opinion was so vastly opposite from where so many people are at right now. I have been against any kind of weight related surgery for over 20 years now since hearing the earliest horror stories. Whenever I got into any kind of discussion about my objection to the surgery, all i got was the "health issue". I've said before that it's tragic that 1/100 people will die within a month of having it even though it's being done "for their health". Many more will lose weight only to gain it back and have other problems for the rest of their lives, and some will lose weight and begin to suffer problems with malnutrition. All of the people that argue "for health" obviously care more about "the look" because some of these horrible side affects are not as easily seen as the weight itself. I shudder to think about the things that even the best patients who recruit others neglect to ever say as they talk up the weight loss and how easy it was "for them".

My photography was always "controversial" because my subject was plus sized women, nude, and I'm a dude. This would also probably work harder against me than I could realize from my perspective, but I remained devoted to this cause and I have been rewarded. I have to think that I chose to create work that was explicit in a way that matched my disgust and disappointment with the whole idea of surgery to "correct" something that I have always found so elegant, feminine, and beautiful.

To get to the point! When I see more and more blogs that are pro-size acceptance, I am seeing points of view that I realize are only shared by so few people at this point. When I started to think that there were too many blogs already re-hashing fat issues, I am still motivated to continue because I myself was inspired and impressed that there are others who don't agree with cutting out every fatty's stomach that can afford it (and some that can't).

Ok, I can't get my entire philosophy into the first few entries, but I was again compelled to attempt to bring up at least one photo site because this is the kind of work that I always wanted to create while I was already creating "other stuff". :) I gotta hand it to Leonard Nimoy too, with his full body project! It has got to be a little easier as an old white guy to get a few sexy bbws to strip down and take a few pics if you used to be Spock! I have to hope that they were motivated at least by some small degree by the same things that motivate me in the work I've been fortunate enough to create. The motivation I'm talking about is a desire to create something that shows how elegant, feminine, womanly, and erotic the plus sized woman's form really is. If just one woman sees that series of images and feels that she doesn't have to get cut open to fit in, I think that the work is very very very important indeed. It's exactly what I hope my work has done and continues to do.