Revealing Her Holiest of Holies

When I'm shooting nude models, I usually prefer to hide her Holiest of Holies. No. I'm not vaginaphobic. I managed to sire a few children, after all. And it has nothing to do with any sort of morality judgement: Many of my moral values are more pagan influenced than Judeo-Christian/Muslim influenced. But once the model is completely undraped, I think a bit of mystery can often be more powerful and way more sexy.

That's not to say images that include exposed genitalia can't be powerful and sexy. They certainly can be and I've seen many, many examples of such. I like to think I've shot of few of those myself. It's also not to say I completely avoid shooting the object of most men's desires. But, I've found, when I'm going through the images and selecting which I'm going to process, I'm more-often drawn to images where, through shadow or pose, the "goods" remain veiled and cloaked in magical secrecy.

I've ocassionally thought about cultures where nudity is the status quo, e.g., indigenous tribes in the Amazon are a good example. What turns men on in those groups? In most cultures, it's an accepted notion that men are visually-oriented when it comes to sexual arousal. What happens to that notion in cultures where a birthday suit is the same as a business suit? I'm guessing it requires overt physical contact to arouse men (and women) in the everyday-nudity cultures. Throughout the rest of the world, where public nudity is the exception, rather than the rule, nudity often stimulates and titillates and, in my opinion, maintaining a bit of secrecy when it comes to the model's Holiest of Holies can often be even more stimulating and titillating.

The pretty girl accompanying this post is one of my favorite models to work with-- Nautica. I captured these a month or so ago with my Canon 5D, 85mm f/1.8 prime, ISO 100, f/6.3 @ 125th. Three light sources were employed: A 5' Photoflex Octodome for my main, a medium Chimera strip for highlights and a small umbrella also providing highlights. There was also a fair amount of ambient in the room, coming in from a wall full of windows behind me.