Is It Porn Or Art?

Photo by Edward Weston

FaceBook, Instagram and the rest of social media is awash in provocative images which many might label pornographic or at least rate an 18+ rating.

But there are also amazingly artistic images of the human body, both male and female, which certainly would pass as art by anyone’s definition.

So how do you know the difference? Especially when it comes to social media?

Of course there are some images like the wet T-shirt shot which are clearly shot to arouse sexual interest. You can also tell as the comments usually range from “what’s her name” to other more salacious observations having nothing to do with photography.

Case in point: this morning on FB there was a shot reported to have been taken in Viet Nam during the war in the 60s. It’s a busy street scene and it’s not until you look a little closer that it becomes obvious the girl in the centre of the image is lifting her mini dress to reveal the stuff she was selling.

It is both disgusting and disturbing and objectifies women and, when it comes to photography, what’s worse is it’s just a bad snap shot poorly composed and overly exposed (pun intended).

It’s soft porn and my comment was “meh”.

Now a few posts down there was another image. This one was highly stylized with darkness broken by one stream of light falling across a naked woman’s torso. It revealed nothing in appropriate for a public site and was an excellent photograph. I thought it was an artistic shot well done to the point I think I’d have struggled to do as well.

One of the ways I use to determine whether or not the image I am seeing is porn or art is to follow the FB link back to the photographer’s Instagram or webpage and have a look to see it there are other similar images.

If it’s all young women in various states of undress I move on as I’ve seen it before and it’s just bad photography. But if the site is filled with interesting provocative images that interest me and are well composed and exposed then it gets at least a thumbs up from me.

Finally the image used in today’s post was by master photographer Edward Weston and here’s a link to a very good article about him and his art.