P h o t o g r a p h i e
Photographie artistique de portraits masculins
photographer art photography cgauthier.art
Echo and Narcissus, by John William Waterhouse, c. 1903
Inspired Self-Portraits
An intimately personal style of creation inspired by the staging of one's own body and emotions. Often the narcissistic exercise of an exhibitionist, without interest for the observer, this photographic genre can sometimes represent a deeply intimate and revealing journey. It is this aspect that drives us in the illustration of this creative process and the photographer artists selected to document this discussion.
Creativity through self-portraiture
The criteria for a self-portrait work with artistic significance include the following characteristics:
-
The author must develop and communicate a clear artistic vision
-
As a model, the author must develop a positive attitude towards his own body and master bodily expression.
-
The approach for each photo is inspired by an original composition
-
Minimal mastery of the camera and post-production stages, all produced by the author on an autonomous basis.
Narcissus, at the Mairie Park-Choisy-le-Roi, France
Anne Brigman's Self-Portraits
A visionary of modern photography
Selection of three photographs by Grigman: Via Dolorosa, 1911, Soul of the Blasted Pine, 1908 and The heart of the Strom, 1902
Anne Brigman (1869-1950) is known for her self-portraits in iconic Sierra Nevada landscapes taken in the early 1900s, depicting herself naked outdoors. Brigman's photography was considered radical for its time. Objectifying her own naked body as a subject at the turn of the 20th century was revolutionary; doing so outdoors in a nearly desolate wilderness environment was revolutionary.
Brigman lived in Northern California, where she was known as a poet, critic, and member of the Pictorialist movement. On the East Coast, her work was recognized by Alfred Stieglitz. Brigman remains relatively unknown, despite a period of international prominence as the only compatriot west of the Mississippi in the Photo-Secession, Alfred Stieglitz's fine art photography group.
Although ahead of her time in virtually every facet of her life, she was part of the Pictorialist movement, whose romantic portraits of women dressed in white in gardens stood apart from the modernist trend that propelled artists to 21st-century relevance.
“ Heart of the Storm ” encapsulates her artistic vision. Her approach drove photography purists crazy. She manipulated negatives and prints with tools like a stylus or paint, much as Photoshop is used today. Critics refused to recognize these multimedia composites as art form.
“Heart of the Storm” is the iconic image of two dryads (wood nymphs whose lives are tied to the tree they live in), a classic Greek mythological take on the relationship with the forest. “Her hybrids of beautiful women tied to grotesque trees speak of pain, suffering and death. Brigman believed that suffering was liberating and the only way to grow,” said Kathleen Pyne, who wrote the 2020 biography of Brigman, “The Photographer of Enchantment: Anne Brigman.”
Regarding Brigman's photograph " Soul of the Blasted Pine ," she said of it, "I wanted to go and be free." Through her nude self-portraits, Brigman used her camera to present the image of a modern American woman.
ParkeHarrison and Surrealism
The ParkeHarrison couple produces works that connect humans, technology, and nature. These works present an ambiguous narrative that offers insight into the dilemma posed by the failed promise of science and technology to solve our problems, provide explanations, and comfort us in our human condition. Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison invent a strange world in which a character tries to repair a damaged piece of land using consistently inadequate tools that make the task impossible. Robert ParkeHarrison is often the main character in his photographs, costumed and interacting with specific scenes, objects, and landscapes.
Contemporary artists who reveal themselves through the creation of artistic self-portraits
Shen Wei, a distinctive aesthetic
Shen Wei is a Chinese-American photographer based in New York City. He is known for his intimate portraits of others and himself, as well as his poetic landscapes and still lifes. Shen is prolific and his work has been exhibited in several major international museums. His oeuvre is anchored on the production of self-portraits over a period of more than 20 years.
His aesthetic is unique, and the context and composition of the images give us a distinctive signature. His work is masterful.
Savannah Spirit, I am my own muse
The work of artist Savannah Spirit seeks to combat society's and social media's perception of nudity, particularly female nudity. Her best-known work is undoubtedly "I Am My Own Muse", a series of self-portraits in which Savannah becomes her own muse. In a context of intimacy, she becomes free to show her body to the world.
What makes these shots even more interesting is the use of light: Savannah plays with the shadows created by the shutters that appear on her body and play with her shapes. The choice of black and white allows to amplify the effect of the shadows on the body.
Website: Somewhere, Anywhere Instagram Portfolio
Known as “Thomas, Nude-Soul”
I believe that humans were created in the image of God. That not only was our physical form made in the image of God, but also that our relationships should be like God. I believe that humans are creatures through whom “God’s plans and purposes can be known and actualized.” This means that humans are to love God, and humans are to love other humans as God intended them to love one another, and we are to love ourselves.
The goal of my nude photography is to capture this Imago Dei: to capture the image of God.
The human form is a beautiful thing. The human body has been one of the primary subjects of photographers: how to capture the human body naked or clothed, nude in nature or artistically indoors, in color or black and white? As with all my photography, my goal is to share the beauty and glory of creation in many ways. This is my goal and passion in the journey as a young man through the art of self-portrait nude photography.
The simple definition of what it means to be an artist is to take risks. True art shares a part of oneself, one's identity, one's soul.
Measure the moment, live your passion, share your soul.
Source: Flickr
YouTube Channel
Source: personal website nude-soul.com
Getting out of addiction, as documented by Damon Baker
Internationally renowned photographer Damon Baker used self-portraiture during an alcohol detox. He described this difficult transition in an interview with Nylon magazine in March 2023, during an interview with Alice Pfeiffer. He documented with a series of self-portraits throughout this difficult transition that he shared on his Instagram account. This account reaches more than 1.2 million followers.
The disconcerting beauty of Rowan Renee's nude self-portraits
Known for her nude portraits that explore gender identity through sexually ambiguous models, Rowan Renee has developed a singular creative approach that combines alternative photography with raw subject matter as a source of self-expression.
In his portfolio Bodies of Wood presented in 2016, the author offers an autobiographical series composed of self-portraits that have a considerable impact on a visual, emotional and social level. For this portfolio, the artist has produced a series of highly personal images that offer a positive and romantic insight into his secret world.
Each scene recreates its own narrative made of symbolic images, ranging from a naked body thrown into a wooded area to parts of her body unrestrainedly showing her genitals.
Review of the Bodies of Wood exhibition, Hyperallergy, 2016, by Kristin Sancken Instagram Portfolio
Alex Stoddard, fantasy and surrealism of portraiture
Alex Stoddard is a photographer based in Los Angeles, California. He was born in 1993 and grew up in rural Georgia. Inspired by his surroundings and rural isolation, he began taking self-portraits as a teenager. Photography became a means of escape, allowing him to construct elaborate scenes and enter the role of different characters through costumes and poses.
Stoddard's work is heavily influenced by art history in the digital age. He explores concepts of fantasy and surrealism in portraiture, as well as the human form and its connection to nature. He is entirely self-taught and relies on his eye and natural instincts to create. His style is characterized by simple compositions that frame more meaningful and universal themes.
NSEX is the debut book by photographer Alex Stoddard, in which he explores the parallels between metamorphosis in the natural world and the human coming-of-age. Through staged and highly stylized images, Stoddard invites viewers into a dark and colorful world of burgeoning sexuality and crawling insects.
Flicrk Website Instagram InSex Portfolio
Anastasia Mihaylova: connection to the earth
“I believe that only through the nude it is possible to show who we are - and we are, first of all, children of nature. I take pictures of people without makeup, clothes and manicure, I do not retouch people in my photos, because only without all the tinsel can you show how beautiful a person is. Just a person and a camera, and nothing else. With my photographs I help people to love themselves the way nature itself created us, because how could it have created something that is not beautiful?”
The book: “ I am Planet Earth ”. This book is more than just a series of beautiful photos, it is a return to our origins, a reminder of our connection to the Earth and the raw beauty that surrounds us.
Marwane Pallas, aesthetic pleasure
Marwane Pallas's art is submerged in aesthetic pleasure, sacred art and catharsis. Each of his photographs speaks to us about the myths of the past. He takes classical culture and mixes it with love and violence to create pictorial photographs.
In 2015, Marwane Pallas' name began circulating thanks to his series Doctrine des signatures. The self-taught French photographer was then quickly exhibited in New York, London, Paris and Milan with his fresh and graceful approach to digital self-imagery.
Web: Instagram Metal Magazine Art CTRL Portfolio
Richard Hamilton, dreamer haunted by nostalgia
Known as “James Brockie”
Artist's CommentsI am an amateur photographer who shoots 35mm/120mm and digital film. Primarily self-portraits, although I occasionally have the opportunity to work with models. My interests in photography span a wide range of subjects, but I am most interested in fine art nudes (male and female).
Source: Flickr Portfolio
Known as “Nathanael McIntyre”
Artist's Comments
In this site I am interested in exploring the male nude in various contexts. I like the play of light and shadow on the body, exploring unusual perspectives and considering the male nude in unusual contexts. I also like to inject a bit of humor into the images with new juxtapositions.
The subject is always myself. I love being naked myself, and the photos depict that situation inside and out. I try to be completely naked as much as possible. In that sense, my photo stream is my personal nude diary. I think for me it's part spiritual and part sensual.
I am a happily married man with children, and I am not interested in presenting sexualized images. I generally do not include images with erect penises.
Pablo Poulain
Photographer, film producer and drag queen. Lives in Chile
Source: Flickr Instagram Instagram Drag YouTube Chanel
Known as “Nathan Venas”
Artist's Notes
I started taking nude photos of myself about three years ago. At first, it started out simply because I was bored and curious about what it would be like to expose myself to everyone on the internet, and I quickly discovered that I really enjoyed it. I loved playing with light and seeing the different ways it could change the way I perceived my body, I loved seeing the huge progress I was making with each photo and how much I had grown as a photographer, which can be seen by comparing the oldest image to the most recent photo. I was thrilled by the fact that people were really enjoying my work and I was building a community of people who were eager to see what I would come up with next. But the most important thing of all, the thing that made me want to continue doing it back then and that kept me coming back today, is the fact that it made me feel comfortable in my own skin, it made me find beauty in my own body, and with that, it made me find beauty in the male body. I understood that the human body is a masterpiece and that its beauty is not limited exclusively to the female body. It freed me from some unnecessary taboos that this society imposes, it made me find beauty in places where I was always told there was none, and it made me understand that it is actually okay to find it there and that it doesn't really change who I am, it just broadens my horizons. It made me grow as a person.
Despite all of this, society remains the same, and the way it imposes its established views has always been my biggest fear during this process. That’s why I decided to delete all my photos and profiles about a year ago, the fear grew stronger the more I exposed myself. But during this year, I had the constant feeling that I wanted to keep exploring, I wanted to keep pushing my creative boundaries, share my work with the world and keep learning in the process. This desire to grow eventually won out over the fear. The fear hasn’t gone away, but I feel like I’m gaining more than I can lose. That’s why I’m back, to be able to keep growing in all the aspects I just mentioned.
If you haven't seen my work before, I extend a warm welcome to you, I hope you enjoy what I do as much as I enjoy doing it. If you used to follow my work before I passed away, I welcome you back and apologize for leaving all of a sudden, I hope we can rebuild this community we once built and make it even bigger this time around.
Source: closed Flickr account
Artistic approach
Hi! My name is Nathan and as you may have noticed I am a male self-portraitist who does nude art. I started taking my photos in 2015, it started out of pure curiosity and a willingness to experiment but it has become a hobby that I don't plan on stopping anytime soon as it has changed some important aspects of my life in ways I didn't expect but I'm glad it has.
By the time I started, I had already been fascinated by nude art for several years, fascinated by the beauty of the body and the elegant ways it could play with light. Granted, at first this fascination was limited to pieces featuring the female body, there is a disproportionate amount of female nude art compared to male nude art, also, not being particularly attracted to men and having grown up in a culture where the male body is almost never considered something beautiful, graceful or simply pleasing to look at naked, I never did any further research into what male nude art looked like.
Nevertheless, I was really interested in the idea of exploring nude art myself instead of just consuming it. And not only was I interested in being behind the camera, but also in what it would be like to be in front of it. So one day, I ignored all the fears fueled by preconceived cultural ideas and gave it a try. Despite having only an old point-and-shoot camera, some common household lights, and a male body that I myself did not consider an interesting subject, I gave it a try.
I had looked at a lot of nude art, which was a huge inspiration for my own photography, even though it was all about the female body (I think that influence is evident in a lot of my photos). I also had enough knowledge of photography to make it work, or so I thought. Looking back, most of my older photos are far from my favorites, but what matters is the fact that I loved them at the time, I loved them enough to want to take more, to push myself to do better with each new photo, to experiment with different poses, angles, and techniques, but most importantly, I loved them enough to challenge my own views, to accept and love my own body as it is, and to open myself up to a world where beauty can be found in so many more places beyond the female body.
Source: DeviantArt account is no longer active
Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's “Vitruvius”
This self-portrait project designed by the author of this site is inspired by the famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci based on the idealized proportion of the human body. The process is simple: the lines of the drawing of the Vitruvian Man are superimposed on a double photo of the model lying on the ground. The photos were taken outdoors with the help of a drone by Michel Grenier in a vertical plane, to avoid any distortion of the shot. The final image demonstrates that the proportions of Leonardo's drawing correspond well to the proportions of my body.
Artist's Comments
The Vitruvian Man is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci made around 1490. The drawing depicts a man in two superimposed positions, with his arms and legs spread apart and inscribed within a circle and a square. The drawing illustrates Leonardo's concept of the ideal proportions of the human body. Da Vinci's drawing was inspired by Vitruvius' depiction of the idealized man created in 1521. Vitruvius described the human body as the primary source of natural proportion. The drawing itself is often used as an implicit symbol of the essential symmetry of the human body and, by extension, the universe as a whole. Rumor has it that da Vinci altered Vitruvius' measurements by adjusting the body measurements from his own body proportions.
The inscription on a square and a circle comes from a description by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius. Leonardo's image demonstrates his mastery of mathematics and art, during the Renaissance. It illustrates his deep understanding of the proportions of the human body. Furthermore, the image represents the cornerstone of his attempts to integrate man with nature. Leonardo's collaboration with Luca Pacioli, the author of the Divine Proportion, has led some to speculate that he incorporated the golden ratio into the Vitruvian Man.
Source for drone images, Michel Grenier, Flickr
References
The Healing Power of Self Portraits, by Sean Tuckey, YouTube, 2021
The END of Awkward Self Portraits (Especially if You're a Guy) by Evan Ranft, YouTube