Fashionistas Strike Again - Sex and War

All three images from "Muscle Beach" © Alexi Lubomirski.

It has been a while since I posted on the ways fashion photographers blur the boundaries of militarism and, well, tawdry sex [e.g., here and here and here]. I recently came across this series (posted without comment) taken by Alexi Lubomirski* for the German version of Vogue. That Lubomirski's images are slightly less misogynistic than those I've noted before hardly makes them defensible - and it seems to me that they are entirely derivative.

To call these images militaristic may seem odd. You'll note, though, that the men in these images are not only (scantily) dressed in military garb, but are sporting dog tags. And while they are working out in sandy terrain, I doubt it is meant to convey a beach! So, take some G.I.s enjoying a little R&R - all glistening, bulging pecs and biceps - and drape models over them and voila! - yet another sanitized, sexualized vision of war.

You may think that that claim is a stretch. But as I have pointed out before, fashion photographers have an odd relationship to issues militarism and security. And our "embedded" photojournalists have (among other things) had their work integrated into homogenized reporting (here), been sharply criticized for actually depicting the agony of war (here) and, too often, focused on "our boys" at play - the human interest side of death and destruction (here and here and here and here).** Lubomirski's series seems to me to represent a hybrid between this last category and the misogyny of the fashion photography to which I link above.
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* When you get to Lubomirski's web page click Editorial, then German Vogue, then 2011, then "Muscle Beach." The photographer too posts the images without comment.
** Make no mistake - the clear difference in genre here lies in the fact that photojournalists risk their lives for their work - see e.g., here and here and here and here and here and here.

Passings ~ Corinne Day (1962-2010)

In The Guardian you can find a slew of tributes to and remembrances of fashion photographer Corinne Day who has died prematurely of brain cancer [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].

Steve Meisel + Vogue Italia = Steaming Piles of BS (again)

(All three Images © Steven Meisel)

In this post I will try to resist simply reverting to form. It will be difficult. My subject is Steve Meisel, about whom I have posted several times before. Let's just skip the excoriation and say he's at it again.

This time, though, I have a suggestion. Think of this as my effort at being constructive. I am not much for charity as a solution to political-economic problems. But since ~ I assume ~ Meisel makes buckets of money plying his trade, I'd be ever so grateful if he'd simply donate a couple thousand to this or that relief effort and spare us his attempts at profundity. I'm certain I am not alone in this. And notice that I am least crediting him with a sincere concern with the various public troubles he has incorporated into his work over the past few years. So let him 'help' (if that is what he thinks this stuff does) by allowing his money to speak for him instead of imposing on the world yet another vapid spread in Vogue Italia.

Passings ~ Brian Duffy (1933~2010)

Harold Wilson, Prime Minister, 1966 © Brian Duffy.

Photographer Brian Duffy has died. You can find the announcement and a story on Duffy from earlier this year in The Guardian here and here. There is an appreciation here at npr too.