loocking up to her - preview

I am not a submissive guy (nor a very dominant man...) but I truly admire the wonderful young women who have the guts to show themselves and all of their sensual loveliness so uninhibitedly to my eyes and my camera. 

In most instances those women - in many cases one for sure still can call them girls - do not only have a beautiful body but also a beautiful mind. Often they run against the given rules of society, they are engaged in protection of the environment, in politics, the goals of their lives are much more ambitious than just being an enjoyment for the male gaze and they model for me because they are free thinkers and enjoying their sensuality, their erotic effect and power of attraction is just another part of their joy of life and the expression of their freedom and nonconformism.

So often I look up to them and admire their personality just as I admire their wonderful bodies and all the parts of it.

In this series, now accessible for my "Power-" and "Special-"patrons, I photographed Maya directly from below and literally looked up to her. I lay on the beach and Maya stood over me, one leg to the right and one to the left of my belly and my shoulders and I looked up to her while she looked down to me.

The perspective in photography is a powerful tool. Think about politicians and other persons in powerful jobs: most of the times they are portrayed from a lower position, looking up to them while they look down to the photographer (and the viewer of the image) - and rarely they show such a nice, alluring smile like Maya in this session.

Later, when those persons loose their powerful status their representation in photos also changes. Suddenly they are photographed from a position that allows looking down on them - now the viewer can feel him/herself in a higher-ranking position and literally look down on the ex-powerful.

In the photography of women (in advertising, fashion, etc.) of earlier days they were almost always looked at from a higher position. In a most striking way Helmut Newton changed this view on fashion models and (maybe not for the first time, but for sure as the most famous) portrayed them as strong, self-confident persons taking the images from in many cases extremely low positions. 

Now, to be honest, I didn't take those pictures from the inferior standing only because of the admiration for Maya that I feel. You can imagine that it is quite a joyful position to lay between the legs of such a seductive model and looking up to the curly bush that caresses her beautiful private parts.

Still, the change of relative positions in fact subtly changes the game of powers that always occurs between two persons. It's not me who moves around to search for the perspective or to put in fore- or background what I like to, it's her who moves over me, stands up straight and directly over the lens, inclines over me or turns around to show me her other side...