Skip to main content

Snap

It's fun having a photographer in the family. I think...

 Then I see an illustration like this, found in an article today, and start laughing and cringing at the same time. Because for many years, my brother wanted us to do a full nude family portrait.
Illustration by Chris (Simpson's artist), he's on Twitter here
'Calm down dad I only need to photograph your face'


I was up for it, but my mum and dad were not so keen. So, it never happened, and while we're all still here, and could technically still do it, I sometimes feel a slight nostalgia for the picture that never was.

 We have, instead, had nude family runs, an awkward affair where my two brothers and I joined the kids in a race out and back at the beach shack. (Mum and dad did not take part.) As we neared the front gate, there was the frisson of possible exposure to the public, but we all made it around without injuries, though with some barely disguised discomfort.

The original Nude Race poster from 2012. Waho indeed! (C) Noah
At other times, when my brother has organised photo shoots, I have gone from the clothed to the unclothed in a strangely unnerving way. OK, let's do that shot in the see-through dress, OK, now let's try that without the slip, OK, so I think it looks better if you take OFF the dress...

Wah?



(c) Charlie Sublet
(c) Charlie Sublet


I won't post here the progression to full nudity from this particular shoot (partly because I'm new to blogging and am not sure where it could all end up!) suffice to say that these pics were a lot of fun. I do treasure them as capturing a moment in my pregnancy where I was nearly ready to pop.


Sideways glance in Centre Way (c) Charlie Sublet





The most confronting thing was when my brother then put a photo from this series into an exhibition on 'organic fertility' or something along those lines. He told me he was entering a 'belly shot', which I felt fairly comfortable with. I took the baby boy, since born, along to the exhibition, showing in public space in Melbourne Central.

When I was hit in the face, literally, with a full body and muff shot, I reeled back physically in shock. This was not a shot of my belly, but a full nude picture of myself. Though I have no major issue with being nude, this was in a shopping centre! Not even an art gallery.

So, when I saw the illustration above 'Calm down, dad, I only need to photograph your face'  I thought about that nude family portrait that never was. And I thought about those photo shoots that started out with me clothed and playing around with props, and ended up with me holding a variety of vegetables in the nude. 

Not that there's anything wrong with that!!

For more of Charlie Sublet's photographic images, have a look through his site or read his Pabulum Blog

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Widening Crack

The little flame in our forty-year-old wall furnace, the one that was supposed to hold tight, hang on and persist, was being extinguished, again and again. The pilot light had become unanchored, blown away and shut down. We were in lockdown, in a Melbourne winter.  We had been bunkered down in our homes on and off over the last two years. We had sat tight as we amassed days upon days of lockdown. At one stage, the summer came. We had mask-free beaches, we had open cinemas and bars.  But then, another Covid gust gutted us in 2021 and shut us back inside. Here we were, like a little pilot flame, buffeted and blown away but still holding out for better days. I would walk past the heater to find that the fan was blowing cold air into the small home. Each time we re-lit the pilot light, it didn’t last long before it was gone. Still, we kept holding onto hope as we sat through the days of rising case numbers and deaths. The gas technician (essential worker; exemption) was on his hands and kn
Post a Comment
Read more

The Waiting

Morning walk.  I wake too late to do my nature writing workshop so I decide to get out into nature instead! Head off at about 7 am, sustained on half a cup of hot water with lemon, a banana and a snack KitKat. Make it to the backbeach in time to see the gold coming up from behind the sand dunes, flowering light from the lighthouse. Tiny black and white wren on the rocks, the Plover family just foraging. A heavy gull takes off when I approach. It flies past me, sits and waits, and flies back as it senses I’m no danger. I take photos and slow-mo videos. I can hardly make out the flying birds as they rise into the dark clouds.  I keep stopping to look at things. At one point I lie with my back in the sand on the edge of the dunes. All around the waves continue coming in and the birds call. What would I do without this?  At the lighthouse, Galahs wheel and screech, their pink bellies exposed as they fly above me. A couple fall behind, screeching ‘wait for me, wait for me!’ Further around t
Post a Comment
Read more

Currawongs Spinning me Home

When the branches of Eucalyptus botryoides fall, as they often do, they root again and continue to grow. The tree is its own ecosystem. Currawongs, sleek black birds with their flash of white at the tail, build their nests, made of sticks and lined with soft material, high up in trees like this.  Some months ago, I stood in shock as arborists began to cut this tree on the next block down, over two days of vicious chain-sawing and woodchipping. I filmed the screaming tree, as it shuddered, shook and then gave way, limbs falling with the ‘thunk’ of a human body.  The tree danced a ballet for its dying and the currawongs lost one of their homes. Many love the currawong for its song, a mix of honey, with a note of uplift, a soaring whip almost, mellifluous on the updraft, ringing from up high. It sounds like an entreaty, a lament and an invitation. The onomatopoeic word, currawong , depicts the sound of their call.  Decades ago, for me these birds were synonymous with NSW, and it was a st
Post a Comment
Read more