Intention, Humility and Honesty

Sat, 25 Jan 2014 23:41:57 GMT

I recently posted that good intent was the key to avoiding the trap of sexual objectifying photographs. An insightful friend commented "(there is) subjectivity in how people interpret images". True! You can't please all the people all the time. So how can a photographer have a comfort level with their intentional acts if somebody is complaining? I believe the answer is a combination of humility and honesty. If 90% of people tell me that a picture I took is so sexually objectifying that it is basically porn, than I need to stop deluding myself that I was taking a picture of a pretty girl next to a tiger. If one person out of fifty says that I’m they are profoundly disturbed, I would chalk it up to their personal issues.

Humility arrives when you listen to the feedback with a grain of salt and then adjust your intentions. The salt would put aside the small feedback and respond to the big feedback. Honesty arrives when you really embrace either not sexually objectifying your art or you embrace doing something else. What if an artists wants to go the sexually objectifying route to pay the bills? Bully for them, but be honest about what you're doing. Then have the humility to take your lumps when the opponents of sexual objectification show up at your door! This is usually not a problem because there are avenues for sexually objectifying photographers, and these venues are away from commonly used social media sites. Personally I like to share my work with a wide audience, so punch up my humility if you see issues with my creations!

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Intention, Humility and Honesty