The acceptable age of voyeurism?

Inspired by a babysitter he surprised in front of the bathroom mirror shooting pictures of herself with his Polaroid, the photographer Uwe Ommer decided to put together a book of erotic self-portraits by inexperienced photographers. The cast of self-portraitists includes a wide range of personalities, from students to artists, actors, stylists, dancers, models, musicians, teachers, and more…but is this art or an example of exhibitionism? Do they all secretly want to be porn stars or webgirls? The digital age of voyeurism has become a comfortably familiar staple of mass culture. The media feeds us the intimate details of tenuously famous personalities, elevating them to celebrities. Scantily-clad college students set up Web cams in their dorms and voyeurs across the world pay to watch them clean their bathroom and lounge around in bed. Do they want to expose their bodies to turn people on? Or is this exploitationism (of who)? Or is this a shout out to girls to Do It Yourself?

Art history lists dozens of examples of ‘fine art’ that crosses the dubious line between art and pornography. Some of the most famous paintings in the world were originally little more than naughty pictures for very rich men. The act of looking or ‘peeping’ was undertaken for the purpose of achieving some sort of sexual excitement. The observer generally did not seek to have sexual contact with th real person being observed. Artists purposely cross the line but intellectualize it away. Peudo-artistic photography magazines produce porn and use the art tag as a disguise. Nothing changes.

havanna ’99
Originally uploaded by This Window

The pinhole camera used to take this photograph in Havanna in 1999 was handmade by the photographer(?) for the purpose of taking photos of tourists. In its simplest form, the photographic pinhole camera consists of a light-tight box with a pinhole in one end, and a piece of film or photographic paper wedged or taped into the other end. A flap of cardboard with a tape hinge can be used as a shutter. The pinhole is usually punched or drilled using a sewing needle or small diameter bit through a piece of tinfoil or thin aluminum or brass sheet. This piece is then taped to the inside of the light tight box behind a hole cut through the box. A cardboard box can be made into an excellent pinhole camera.

I’m not sure why I look pregnant?

While I was away enjoying myself, horse riding, drinking and dancing, my wife was hard at work writing her first novel ‘Honeycote’ – nothing changes, still doing the same stuff….

In 1880 Sabine Baring-Gould inherited the family estate of Lewtrenchard, Devon, which comprised 3,000 acres. In 1881 he installed himself at Lewtrenchard as both Squire and Parson. He restored St. Peter’s Church, Lewtrenchard, and his home Lewtrenchard Manor. Why is he important to me? Read more

I come from a working class background (this is not an apology or me trying to be cool – it is a fact). My paternal lineage goes back to the coal mines at Kiverton Park and my maternal lineage goes back to the car manufacturing industry in Birmingham (Austin). My uncle was  a communist (maybe)  a  defender of socialism.

 Where is Socialism now?

 The cynical, vote begging polices disrespect the memory and achievments of socialism and the (real) Labour Party. The white working class have been forgotten in the clamber for the ‘clean handed’ vote – thank God it has backfired with the new middle-classes turning their backs on the devils wearing the red rose.  It has taken 10 years for them to show their true colours (a muddy [Gordon] Brown – a mixture of every colour and policy with no true depth or clarity) traitors to my forefathers and my heritage.

Baring-Gould was an antiquarian, novelist, and travel writer, who was born in Exeter and educated at Clare College, Cambridge. In 1864 he became curate of Horbury, Yorkshire, but moved to become rector of Lew Trenchard, Devon, in 1881, when he inherited his family estate there and stayed until his death.

He was the writer/poet who penned the lyric to  ’Onward Christian Soldiers’, which was written a processional hymn for thechildren of his Parishin Horbury Bridge, Yorkshire. It was published in The Church Times in 1864, and set to its now-traditional tune, “St. Gertrude,” by Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) in 1871. Baring-Gould originally entitled the song “Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners“ I have always loved this hymn, with its powerful chant ‘….marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus, going on before’ – stirring stuff, words that lead men into the battlefield to die for a cause.

I was prompted to set the words of Baring-Gould and the melody by Sullivan to my own ‘tune’ but called it “Procession with Cross and Banners“.

A reviewer wrote: ‘Procession With Cross And Banners’ sounds like a Vision On tribute to the Salvation Army, which is just as well as I misread it as ‘Procession With Cross And Bananas’, bringing the Lord into our house via the greengrocer. A dark dance thread emerges in this and is subverted by mental cases.’ This hymn was released on a ‘This Window’ CDr called ‘Jig-Saw Man’..read more or better still [Buy It]