Lou O’ Bedlam’s Friday Feature: Kara Marsh

By Lou Noble on September 4th, 2009

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Nudity makes me uncomfortable.  I suppose that’s not all too uncommon, being an American, but it is something I wrestle with.

I’m used to seeing a woman naked after taking her out to drinks, maybe some dinner.

Or that one time after a Christmas party.

Ehem.

In any event, it’s always been tied to dating, and even then, usually under low light, and either before or after some serious kissing.

But Kara walks into my apartment for a shoot, shedding clothes as soon as she enters.  She is not uncomfortable, not self-conscious.  Not looking to entice or arouse.

And it shorts out my circuits.

I’m getting better at it.  Shooting more nudes, meeting more women who consider the ability to be nude for art a strength, to buck convention and make public what many believe is something very private.

It’s something I’ve come across, being a photographer these past few years.  People who have a very different concept of…well, many things.  Several of the models I’ve worked with lately have no problem with being nude for photos. And so it’s forced me to re-think my concepts regarding nudity in general.

Because it’s always been associated with dating, with sex, a sense of the taboo about seeing someone you’re not sleeping with naked.  Something illicit.  As if you’d gotten one over on the person shown nude.

The first nude I did, frankly, was more about the ability to see a woman nude than it was about taking good photos. I was attracted to the novelty of it, the first few times.

Unfortunately, it showed in the work.  Had one shoot where almost every shot was blurry.  {shakes head in shame}

But the more I did those shoots, the more I focused on doing the model justice, getting it right.

And the more I’ve come to the opinion that the women I shoot already have, that nudity can be, can mean, many different things.  It can be used to connote sex, but it can also evoke a sense of calm, of confidence, of raw truth.

And I’ll tell ya, it’s hard.  Hard to do it right, so that it’s not just OOOH, NAKED LADY!!!

But Kara, in particular, makes it easy, because she’s as comfortable nude as she is with clothes on, and her utter lack of sheepishness is empowering. It was actually her idea to shoot her nude, and not having to ask was another enabling detail. That she trusted me enough to treat the situation properly puts me in the right headspace to do the job right.