About the work

A photographer's chosen style is coded culturally and historically. Every image is a textlike collection of signs of the photographer's attitude to life in general and his choice of subject in particular.

 

As a photographer I find myself powerfully drawn to the lyrical language of Nature, and in paticular her pivotal organism, the female human body. For me the visual facts of the female body are curvilinear volumes and shapes  (forms)  symphonically interconnected.

 

In photographing this beautiful subject I strive at all time to evoke awakened emotions through expressive gestures; to create images which translate into language the spatiality (or lack thereof) of configured lines, forms (volumes) and shapes; and to express the greatest possible sense of tactility. To create a celebration of the nurturing and essential qualities of my chosen subject.

 

What draws me personally to the work of the great modern sculptors (Rodin, Maillol, Brancusi and Moore), and to the photographers of the "Modern Movement"  (also referred to as the "New Objectivity Movement") of the 1920-1940 era (Stieglitz, Strand, Weston, Adams, Cunningham) is the timelessness of their creations and the powerful aura which their great works generate.

 

During the four decades of repressive censorship of South Africa's Nationalist party, photographic images of the naked body (nudes) were banned. Since the lifting of this censorship South Africans could not be blamed for believing that, besides nothing (censorship), there is only porn and pin-up.

 

Twenty years of enlightment have brought very little in the way of fine figure photography. Only a flood of images which many people regard as degrading.

 

Whilst not trying to make a statement with this collection, I am trying to fill a void. Photographs of the nude, pursued with aesthetic integrity, can be inspiring and liberating. That is the goal of this collection - images that are sensitive and sensuous. Evocative but not demeaning. Transcendentally beautiful.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       - CHARLES FAULL