Of course, my friend is right when he says that women do not stand naked on an iceberg in Iceland. Or lie upside down in an armchair. Pressing their butts against a shower door. Sit naked on a motorcycle. Or on a photocopier. Or standing leaning against a wall in an abandoned factory building. Or sucking on a lollipop naked. Or riding a horse naked without a saddle.
The list could go on forever: How many times have you seen a woman naked baking cookies? Or dumping a pint of milk over her body? Or ridden a bicycle over a sand dune?
Stop!
[Sound when a record needle jumps and scratches across the record]
Give me a break!
I can imagine a woman naked baking cookies very well. Maybe it's even a fantasy. The flour makes everything a bit dirty, disreputable and we romp around together afterwards like teenagers (and more).
Let brains rain!
Heels and sand?
But when a woman is standing on the beach in high heels or riding a bike on a sand dune, I think, oh God, make brains rain!
How stupid is she, I wonder? It's absurd and I can't put myself in the situation without feeling quite sorry for her. Then I'm immediately out of it and the story doesn't appeal to me. Sorry.
And so I think very carefully about what I can implement photographically. Whether the story is credible is not the decisive question. The focus is on the aesthetics, the beauty of the model and her power of attraction.
But if the mental cinema doesn't work and I can't identify with the scenery, then something is wrong for me.
I do not make such pictures. There will never be a shoot of me where a model is wearing a bikini in a bedroom unless she later gets (naked) into a pool. And I will never photograph a dead animal such as an octopus on a model's body. But a naked woman in a stack of hay, why not?
So, unfortunately, I do not agree with my friend. The idea behind a pictorial is not completely indifferent. And not everything is complete nonsense.