Will It Be Shocking, If We Look at Things, Through an Alternative, Angle?

How sometimes, we just, need to, STEP away, from how we’re, all so used to, doing the things that we do, to gain, a new, perspectives, translated…

In the earlier times, people are afraid of getting their photos taken, feeling that getting themselves photographed, is like having their souls, SUCKED out of them, and although later, science had, disproved this belief, but at times, I’d also felt, that photography, “sucks our souls away” at times.  For instance, when the lovers wanted to capture how each other looks all the time, and took a ton of photos of one another, hoping to capture one another’s, feel close by; and, as they broke up, it’d felt odd, saving these photos in our cellphones, and we feel compelled, to delete them all, like keeping them around, they’re, still close to us or something.

the photo by the writer of a male actor colleague, wearing a dress that didn’t fit himphoto courtesy from UDN.com

Truth be told, as we take photos of the other person, it’s that instant that the emotions gained, fluidity, how we’d, given our trusts, to each other, a moment of, intimacy we’d, come to share; as soon as the shutter’s clicked, there’s, that feeling of, we’d, saved something, and the person being photographed felt that s/he’d, given something too.  But I’d found, that this interaction of giving and taking, it’s mostly by a man who’s capturing the photograph, or a portrait of a woman, from the ancient times, women are not found sketching, or photographing a man is quite rare.

I’d often wondered why?  Is it because of the stereotypes of being a male or some other reasons, making him feel that he couldn’t, show how he’d felt openly?  Or, felt that his own self doesn’t, need to be, saved?  Or, is it due to the technicalities, the levels of educations, the feelings, or, the differences of the states of mind and being, that’s caused there to be, not enough women who are, photographers?  There must be, a ton of reasons, and so, I’d, started, looking for the data, to know, if there are, famed female photographers who had, broken the barriers down, and became, an excellent photographer who took photos of, men.

Later I’d found a Japanese photographer, Sakiko Nomura, she was, said to be, the famed porn photographer—Nobuyoshi Araki’s only pupil.  Ms. Nomura’s famed for her shots of nude men with feelings, instead of like pornography.  The men in her photographs, are very soft, gently, and to the point of, flirtatious like women, but at the same time, they’re, all, manly.

From the world where we’re so used to using the angles of men to examine women, suddenly, there’s, a counterview, I’m sure, it would, catch a lot of those who’d gone to the exhibitions to see the photos off-guard; but Ms. Nomura stated, that she’d not carried the hopes to shock anybody to photograph these men nude, it’s just because she was in school, and everybody around her started practicing her/his photography skills by photographing nude ladies, she’d, selected, naturally, to—photograph men nude, and in the end, she’d, gained her reputation as an “independent female photographer”, she was, a bit surprised about that too.

and here’s the man photographed by the Japanese photographer…fo9und online

It’s just, switching to an alternative angle, and capturing the same individual, in that same space, at that same time, so, why was it, so shocking?  If it’s a matter of habits, then, it’s, worth everybody’s using the multiple perspectives to examine the matters, to capture that always missed-out-on gentler perspective; I hope, that there will be one day, when most people don’t get shocked, as the perspectives are switched.

And so, this woman just wanted an alternative angle to examine things, because throughout histories, there were the women who were painted or photographed nude, and this Japanese woman just wanted to do something different, so she’d started, taking photos of men instead, and that shocked everybody, because it’s never been done before, and it’s, considered, innovative, and stranger by the outside world, when it shouldn’t be, it’s just, the same thing, only, from, an alternative, perspective, nothing more.