Why not just plain nude?
- May 22nd, 2013
- By A. K. Nicholas
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Sometimes, I think the addition of modifiers, such as in, “fashion nude,” “art nude,” “glamour nude,” and so on are an attempt to legitimize their photographs. I don’t think figure photography needs to be legitimized beyond the legitimacy that is earned by merit of the images themselves. I’ve even seem some of these as distinct entries in wikipedia and other lexicons. The terms mentioned above are are barely descriptive of any particular style or genre. Certainly terms like implied nude and covered nude serve the purpose of indicating a photograph that is inexplicit or perhaps lacks actual nudity. But the others seem to distract in many cases from the work.
If one is describing a site to either entice folks to visit or to warn those who might be offended, some of these modifiers may serve a purpose. However, once someone is viewing the work, I’m not sure we need to explain to them, or persuade them, that its either art or glamour.
In some cases, I see people adding modifiers to the word because it matches a domain name that was available. I’m reluctant to name specifics because that might offend the owners of those sites, though I’m really not condemning practice. We all have to make compromises to get the domain names we want. I’m not sure, however that we need to build brands that match the exact domain name.
Here is an example of a “dark, semi-monochromatic figure art bodyscape”













