Radiant identities : photographs by Jock Sturges / introduction by Elizabeth Beverly ; afterword by A. D. Coleman

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Arthur Tress (b. 1940) is a singular figure in the landscape of postwar American photography. His seminal series, The Dream Collector, depicts Tress’s interests in dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and the unconscious and established him as one of the foremost proponents of magical realism at a time when few others were doing staged photography. People need to realize that a cultural war has been declared here," Sturges says strongly. "A virulent, aggressive minority has decided that Americans don't know themselves what it is they should see, and need to be protected by people who are wiser than they are, even if they are only a tiny sliver of the population. This represents a whole new level of attention to the arts by repressive forces. It's very scary, and it has to be withstood." Sturges: There are photographs that I don't take now that I previously would have taken without any thought at all as to any misinterpretations. The truth is that people who are naturists, who are used to being without clothes, are unself-conscious about how they sit around, how they throw themselves down on the ground, how they sit in a chair, how they stand. They don't think about it; it's not an issue. There's nothing obscene about them. Before, I'd photograph anything. I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body. Now, I recognize that there are certain postures and angles that make people see red, which are evidence of original sin or something, and I avoid that. I don't shoot that any more. But it's difficult. At one point, [my wife] Maia found me crossing legs, or avoiding angles, or giving instructions which inadvertently were instructing young people that some aspect of what they were doing was inherently profane, some aspect of who they were inherently were profane. I've had to relearn how I work with people so that if and when I do avoid different things I don't send any messages in doing so. I'm the last person who has any desire to instruct anybody in shame. That's no errand for me. Bodies of Evidence: After his photographs of naked adolescents were confiscated by the U.S. government, Sturges says the FBI went on to harass his models in 'the worst imaginable way.' Kids feel this, even if they can't articulate it in quite that way. Time and again, when interviewed about being photographed, they talk about the photography as a way of becoming less anonymous. They like the admiration; they like the thought that somebody thinks that they can be art.

Metro: Focus a little on how that affects how you see your work. Isn't what you're calling the sensuality of children or pubescent teenagers a major part of what you go for, of what makes a photo of yours work? To this Sturges responds: "This is pretty chilling language because, in fact, the people in my pictures are not engaged in any acts at all. They are living in contexts that are naturist, which is to say that when it's warm and people feel like it, they don't wear clothes. But there's something else that functions. As soon as the system, or an individual in the system, accuses another individual--as I was implicitly accused, because there were never any charges brought against me--the accused is forced into artificial polarities of political posture. As soon as somebody says that you might be X, you have to immediately say, 'Oh no, I'm Y,' even if in fact the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. I found myself serving a sentence of public denial from the very second the raid on my apartment happened. I had to pretend to be something that, quite frankly, I'm probably not, which is a lily white, absolutely artistically pure human being. In fact, I don't believe I'm guilty of any crimes, but I've always been drawn to and fascinated by physical, sexual and psychological change, and there's an erotic aspect to that. It would be disingenuous of me to say there wasn't. There it is; so what? That fascination pervades the species from the beginning of time; people just admit to it to varying degrees.

The Eye Mama book is a photographic portfolio showcasing the mama narrative and the mama gaze, what female and non-binary photographers see when they look at, and into the home. Supporters of Randall Terry and his organization, Operation Rescue--best known for their protests against abortion clinics--take credit for bringing the books to the attention of prosecutors by such actions as physically destroying books in Barnes & Noble stores. The recent indictment in Alabama describes the work of Sturges and British photographer David Hamilton as "obscene material containing visual reproduction of persons under 17 years of age involved in obscene acts." The book that I have worked on for the past four years is a photographic re-creation of the intersections and divergences of my father’s secret life and the traditional paternal role he played. The project consists of vernacular photographs, new captures and ephemera to tell a story and investigate a childhood mystery. Ironically, several of the archival photos in the project were photographed by me and my father on separate trips to West Berlin in the winter of 1961 but were only rediscovered recently. The Need to Know is the intersection of the factual and fictional based upon historical research, family archives, my memories, and my imagination. A. D. Coleman gave a favourable review of the book in The New York Observer, stating: "Sturges sustains a delicate balance on a very precarious wire ... His struggle is to observe and render his subjects in all of their complexities, trembling on the cusp of change. The result of this long-term, communal effort is one of the most clear-eyed, responsible investigations of puberty and the emergence of sexuality in the medium's history, making a metaphor of the metamorphosis from child to adult." [2] Attempted censorship [ edit ]

Some of these people were bugged by the FBI in the worst imaginable way. They were interviewed very, very aggressively. They're all still willing to let me take their pictures; they think the FBI was completely full of it.The following interview was conducted with Sturges in his San Francisco home by writer David Steinberg, who writes frequently about the culture and politics of sex. That dichotomy between the public consumption of the work and my intent and practice in making it is an uneasy one for me, on occasion. Metro: How does that work for the models? I know that you give them ongoing control over their images. This richly illustrated volume is the first critical look at the early career of Arthur Tress, a key proponent of magical realism and staged photography.

Sturges: Sexually. Before 18, nobody has anything in their pants; after 18, they have everything in their pants. It's ridiculous. The truth is that from birth on we are, to one extent or another, a fairly sensual species. There isn't a person alive who doesn't like being caressed. Children masturbate as early as 1 1/2 or 1 year old. They do it spontaneously and without any thought that there's anything evil about making themselves feel good. That's a sensual experience in their lives, one that should remain entirely the property of the child, as it were. Nobody is going to argue, last of all myself, that it should become involved to any extent in any adult experience of sexuality. But the truth is that Homo sapiens is a sensual species. I think all species are, to one degree or another. However, not everything is so bad in the career of a photographer. There are also those who support the man, and his works are highly appreciated. For example, the American writer Jennifer McMahon used Sturges’ photos to decorate the covers of her three books. Besides, they even made a film about the man’s life, which was released in Germany in 2008, and in 2016 it could be seen by Russian viewers. Private life Sturges: Western civilization insists on these concrete demarcations. Before 18, physically you don't exist; after 18, you exist like crazy. My father was a spy during the Cold War. Bilingual in German and English, he worked for the U.S. Air Force and sent agents into East Germany and elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain in the early 1960s. The Need to Know, a photo book, is my exploration of the meager details that emerged from brief and cryptic conversations with my father and my curiosity about Cold War espionage and its impact upon my family at the time. The book will be published by the Blow Up Press of Warsaw, Poland in early October. Nothing unusual has happened recently around the name of the photographer, he still continues to do photography and, despite numerous conflicts, adheres to the chosen concept.Sturges: Let me make an important distinction here. I will always admit immediately to what's obvious, which is that Homo sapiens is inherently erotic or inherently sensual from birth. But, by the same token, that remains the property of the individual in question up until the point where they become sexually of age, as it were, and it's arguable as to what that age is. If I said for attribution that it was before 18 years old, I'd be hung, drawn, quartered, the whole thing, in American society. In Europe it would raise no eyebrows at all. In our society there's so much shame attached to sexuality in a lot of social milieus that sexual abusers here on the average have had something like 70 or 100 victims before they're finally caught. In Holland where the age of sexual consent is, I think, 13, the average is vastly lower--it's like three or four. That's because people tell much sooner, because shame is absent.

a b Boxer, Sarah (March 4, 1998). "Critic's Notebook; Arresting Images of Innocence (or Perhaps Guilt)". The New York Times . Retrieved February 17, 2013. Sturges: I've had a number of American adolescents who, when they hit high school, said, "I really don't want to see these pictures published right now," and they were immediately pulled. I took them out of the galleries. They completely ceased to exist as far as the public perception of the images went. But when the kids were finished with high school they said, "Don't worry about that; I just went through a stage, and it's fine now." Very naturally, the ages of consent in Europe are vastly lower than they are here, in recognition of the fact that when you have people involved with sexuality, you may as well make it legal so that you can deal with them better about it, so that they'll talk to you and you can educate them. It's laughable, and we'll win these cases, however far it has to go," Sturges continues. "If it gets to the Supreme Court, I'll have the directors of every museum in the country as expert testimony that my work is legitimate art. If obscenity is simply a matter of somebody being without clothes, then there are so many other things that would be inherently obscene--medical books, the National Geographic. Based on the Eye Mama Project, a photography platform sharing a curated feed by photographers worldwide who identify as mamas, the Eye Mama book brings together more than 150 images to render what is so often invisible―caregiving, mothering, family and the post-motherhood self― visible.

By the way, the girl was the main model of Sturges all the years of his work. After she got to the new house, Fanny did not get off her father’s knees, and when she was 5 years old, she asked why she did not have a photo. Since then, the man began photographing his daughter and has been doing it for over 30 years. Returning home in 1970, Sturges moved to Vermont, and there went to Marlborough College, where he studied pedagogical psychology. After receiving his education, the young man did not start working in his specialty. He travels around educational institutions and part-time, teaching the art of photography. Photo Art Metro: Let me ask you this: How do you work with models, particularly young models, in a way that does not appropriate their sexuality, their eroticism, their sensuality, for adult purposes?