Comment on Mountainous by zharth
This is beautiful anyways. I tend to take my glasses off when shooting so have often missed those bystanders until later.
Ignorance is bliss!
I struggle between cautiousness and recklessness. I am risk-averse by nature, although this is something I strongly believe in. In my head I think it's really not a big deal even if I do get caught posing in the wilderness. But I get a lot of messages, both from people in my life who want to protect me, and from society at large, about the dangers in this increasingly conservative culture of getting caught with your not-so-proverbial pants down. I really feel that it has a significant chilling effect on the kind of art I produce, and that frustrates me.
I struggle between cautiousness and recklessness. I am risk-averse by nature, although this is something I strongly believe in. In my head I think it's really not a big deal even if I do get caught posing in the wilderness. But I get a lot of messages, both from people in my life who want to protect me, and from society at large, about the dangers in this increasingly conservative culture of getting caught with your not-so-proverbial pants down. I really feel that it has a significant chilling effect on the kind of art I produce, and that frustrates me.
LOL! Indeed ignorance is bliss, but I still try to be cautious and not seen too. That said I have been left with a sense of unease and anxiety after a shoot wondering if someone saw and what they are going to tell others (and one time especially, about the photos the individual had taken because I later noticed he had a camera on a tri-pod and a telephoto lens). I live in a small conservative city and can’t come out as a nude artist at this time for various reasons. I don’t want to be caught and exposed, but so far no big problems have arisen.
The funniest time I was taken in by the ignorance of my self imposed blindness was when I heard crashing behind me and a big blurry shape coming through the woods. I thought it was a bear and abandoned everything (clothes, camera, glasses) in my scramble to get out of there, only to realize later that it was cow following me. I laughed at myself as it had really scared the sh!t out of me.
The funniest time I was taken in by the ignorance of my self imposed blindness was when I heard crashing behind me and a big blurry shape coming through the woods. I thought it was a bear and abandoned everything (clothes, camera, glasses) in my scramble to get out of there, only to realize later that it was cow following me. I laughed at myself as it had really scared the sh!t out of me.
That is funny! I've learned the counterintuitive principle that it's easy to be snuck up on in the woods. You think you'd hear someone coming from a mile away, but I guess you're so focused on what you're doing, that sometimes you don't know you're not alone until the moment another person comes around the bend! It's also easy to get the impression that you're in the middle of nowhere because you've hiked a ways, but not being familiar with the terrain, you don't realize that there's a highway just beyond that next copse of trees!
I'm pretty open about my lifestyle, which is to my advantage. Everybody that knows me knows I'm a nudist, and a photographer (I let them draw their own conclusions, lol). So I'm less concerned about my reputation. But there's still always that fear of raking up an "indecent exposure" charge. I don't doubt this could have been considered an inevitability and a rite of passage for outdoor nude models and photographers in the past. But these days, the last thing you'd want is to end up on a "sex offenders" registry. Some people are just completely humorless about this subject, and they're ruining it for the rest of us.
I'm pretty open about my lifestyle, which is to my advantage. Everybody that knows me knows I'm a nudist, and a photographer (I let them draw their own conclusions, lol). So I'm less concerned about my reputation. But there's still always that fear of raking up an "indecent exposure" charge. I don't doubt this could have been considered an inevitability and a rite of passage for outdoor nude models and photographers in the past. But these days, the last thing you'd want is to end up on a "sex offenders" registry. Some people are just completely humorless about this subject, and they're ruining it for the rest of us.
too true, i would not want to be busted and put on a registry, but that is less of a concern up here in the great white north. Laws and attitudes are pretty liberal around harmless things (nudity, weed, sexuality, etc) as long as the person isn't being a jerk. Employers and the professional community might be a little more problematic for me. I'll continue to try and be discrete (until I retire anyways) but also have seen more than a few people nude in the woods surrounding our town, so I try not to worry too much about those times as I have likely been seen too and no one minded much.
Yeah, it's sad, but I don't really feel all that free here in the "land of the free"...
I hope so!