Quiet times, times of love

The frostiness brings this wind that offers different waves of fresh air. Changes hit you in the face, but that does not mean that they are bad. Just as in everybody's normal life, photographers too have their downs and some ups. But now I am swimming in calm waters that lead me to reflect on my work as an artist.

Yana relaxing at the fireplace in Paris, Foto: Daniel Bauer

The anger is left behind to give room for the good vibrations of the entry of 2013 in Paris, the city of lights, and for me first and foremost of love. My view, my visions of things change for the smallest incidences. Because we, the veritable photographers, live our lives through the vision that some infrequent circumstances will fill us with satisfaction.

For sure I'll never abandon photography because I have it embodied in me, but my senses, yes, they do change.

You can not always swim against the current, it is useless to try that my models adopt the appearance and a resemblance to the manner of natural beauty I am looking for, even though it is not very difficult to reach. We live in the era of emptiness where there is plenty of everything but very little of the good. Superficiality expands. The long awaited...

Making love with models

Provocative title, isn't it? And yes, it's true: I do make love with my models! Although I stay dressed, keep physical distance and don't touch.

If this sounds like a contradiction to you, you have simply mistaken love for sex. But today I am not talking about sex, even though I've chosen the title deliberately, of course, to mislead you a little bit and to gain your attention.

handcuffed on the carpet - by Daniel Bauer

My models, clients and colleagues may forgive me for using the example of a cookbook to better explain to what I am referring. As you know for sure, most of the photos in cookbooks do not at all arouse appetite. Others make your mouth waters.

Why? Well, the producer of the former simply took photos of meat, vegetable, fruit, sauces... while the artist of the latter was ravished by his presentation. He virtually ate the menu with his camera. He scented the odor with his flashes, tasted the savor with his lenses. The image that is so appetizing was taken with love. Love for his profession. Love for the object of his work.

studio nude by Daniel Bauer

Translated into nude photography, the former photographs bodies and faces, maybe even very beautiful ones, maybe even with professional lighting, correct angles and in focus, but his images will show nothing but flesh. This is what I call pOrn, regardless of hidden or explicitly shown nipples or pussies.

The latter loves his model with his camera, he caresses her with the light, he kisses her with the angles he chooses and adores her, when he releases the shutter.

As with any artist, my profession is my passion and my images are the the fruit of my love for what I do and what I see.

With my photographic art I want to portray the full joy of female sensuality and sexuality. I use eroticism in its original form, without censorship, open, you may say horny, but I don't encourage women to imitate a state of sexual arousal or to force themselves into excitement without reason. I try to create a relaxed atmosphere where she can simply be herself, feel save and appreciated for what and how she is. I want her to feel beautiful, feminine, tempting and attractive, because she is as she is, and I want her to feel that she is perfect, without any need to follow stereotypical ideals of beauty.

Just like an enamored lover looks at her thru rose-colored glasses, I look at her thru my view-finder and see her personal, own beauty, the special and unique in her. Via my lens I try to get in contact with her, to feel her, and to capture the vibrations and emotions in an image. Every woman who gets naked in front of my camera can be assured that she'll receive my full attention, love and understanding. With every click of my camera I ennoble, glamorize and let her feel touched without bodily contact, experiencing the moment and being part of an act of love.

sensual view, by Daniel Bauer

With my artistic photography I try to transform eroticism and sensuality into something pure and holy, worthy to be appreciated. In the composition of my photos you can see genuine moments, a woman in a state of pleasure without having to pretend or exaggerate anything. Although many of my photos show "everything" I believe that they distinguish expressly from the vulgar and describe a woman as a natural, adorable human being, pure in all her parts, including the origin of the world.

To search the particular in every model, feel and appreciate what we have, is the concept of my artistic nude photography. Because for me there is only one way to do things, you believe it or not, but it's all about showing the truth.
With love.

(This text was strongly inspired by an article my ex-love Yana once wrote about my work but regrettably never published. It was called "El Amante Perfecto" and some of the phrases used here I have impudently stolen from her draft.)

Reflect what I want, not what I am

What do you see in the mirror?

For girls the mirror is our best and worst enemy. There are those glorious days where it isn't possible that something goes wrong, and every little reflection we find in the street is like a ray of light that highlights the very best of our figure. The bum seems rounder, the tits, though not very large, are shaped so harmoniously that it is inevitable to feel pride, and the silky hair is finely molded by the wind. Everything is perfect. Overflowing with sensuality and self-assuredness gained from what we have seen in the mirror before leaving home, in those days, we are joyous goddesses, delighted to have the body that nature gave us.

But that does not perpetuate. The days are short and the nights sometimes get a bit long. The next day we return with the same enthusiasm to what yesterday was our best friend, but it has lost interest. What it showed to us as something beautiful yesterday, today turns into a visual attrition of contradictory expressions. The skin blemishes are so very present that you even can't see the face just as it really is, but as a set of black dots, some pimples and a pair of dark circles around the eyes. The bum fallen down, the boobs flabby, and you could even say with some extra kilos. Entirely shabby. How can one be plagued by such a betrayal of an object of which we believe it was objective when it showed us something pretty, but then again it also turns to be a sicko that shows us other realities?

Each nude photograph bears a date of packing. The day of the session. When this woman had one of her most beautiful moments she let a photographer freeze it. An image that might travel the world and many people can admire it as a place of discovery of incomparable beauty. In 20 years this same girl, now more women, with other shapes and with a different beauty than in her youth, she'll say proudly that once she had the luck to be a nude model and to see herself like she never saw herself in front of her friend/enemy, the mirror.

Nude photography as we see it on guapamania.com does not transform women into something more beautiful than what they already are. But with light, the angles and poses it shows the particular wonder of each of them. Without changing them, drawing them, color them or exaggerate them. With the same sense of simplicity that shows itself in the morning when waking up, with her personal gestures and movements. To leave her intact just as she is in the view of everybody.

What do you think?

Are you beautiful?

This is a beautiful world, isn't it? Many of us search natural landscapes on our travels or in our leisure time and, back home, proudly present the photographs of these intact miracles of nature where man not yet has applied its corrections: wild woods, rivers in their natural beds, unmaintained lonely beaches... We love nature as is and sometimes get melancholic, sitting in our well uncluttered offices behind clean double glazed windows, looking at perfectly straight streets and thinking about the fresh air out there in the wild, the roughness we felt on our feet when walking barefooted, the liberating vibrations that made us feel complete and happy because we left the perfectly organized and optimized technical world for a while. It's beautiful.

artistic nude of real people
by Andreu Revilla

But when it comes to photography of people, where is our love for the beauty of nature? Have you recently seen a nude woman, a naked men, that was not „optimized“ by photoshop, that hasn't shaved all the body hair, was made up and styled for hours, who posed in a natural way without taking very artificial postures? And, if you look into the mirror – honestly: don't you want, at least a little bit, to be like those „perfect ideals“ you see all the time on magazine covers, in TV, commercials?

In these times of factitiousness it takes quite some courage to be a photographer who takes photos or human beings simply and just as they are. Andreu Revilla is one of them. Looking at his artistic nude photographs of normal people, detecting their personal, original beauty, is like a walk thru an unordered valley in the mountains. It could make you discover that women and men indeed are beautiful beings.

Maybe next time you look in the mirror you'll think: yes, I am beautiful, too! Give it a try.