chocolate

I can't get enough of sweet things.

Sweet Yana wrapped in chocolate, by Daniel Bauer

Sometimes the pleasure already begins opening the first jacket.

The delicious flavor ascends into my nose and while my fingers softly unwrap the last cover I can't wait to bite into her, to feel her softness and scent the irresistible aroma.

When she slowly melts on my tongue my desire grows beyond all bearing

Sometimes I am so very greedy that I skip the enjoyment of unwrapping.

Wild and impatiently I rip off the wrap and take her brutally, insatiable, hungry.

I prefer the dark kind. Not too soft, not too sweet, with a touch of bitter, just the right mix.

Chocolate temptation. Yana photographed by Daniel Bauer

I can't resist. She fills my heart with yoi. She makes me happy.

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.)

Visual language

I am Swiss. I speak German, a little bit french, just enough to seduce a woman, and the kind of minimal English, limited, as you are just about to read it.

streets of Barcelona,
seen by Daniel Bauer

When I first arrived to Barcelona I couldn't even say if somebody was talking Italian or Spanish. I had taken an intensive Spanish course but in the end I didn't know much more than the common necessary words like "hello", "thanks" and "please get naked".

Spanish is a very beautiful language, especially if you don't understand what people are talking, but just hear the Latin melody. Although from the same linguistic roots like french, many words are very different. More than once I asked a model to please turn her tits to the other side. Not because I wanted her to perform an anatomic feat but simply because I used the french word "tête" for head, which in Spanish sounds like "teta" - tit.

The language really offers a lot to laugh. Imagine that the only difference between chicken-meat and a dick is that the chicken ends with an "o" (pollo) while the dick ends with an "a" (polla). I never ordered a "dick sandwich" (bocadillo de polla), not because I am so very original that I never use old, fucked-up jokes, but rather because during more than 20 years I have been a strict vegetarian and so simply didn't have the chance to apply this gag of Spanish greenhorns. However, during a long time reading "pollo" on an restaurants menu made me think about my "polla" and gave me the opportunity to turn the conversation to the respective topic...

As mentioned before, I am Swiss. Always on time like my Omega watch. And loving precision. Although misunderstandings can be fun and sometimes, under optimal circumstances, even lead directly to where communication happens on a more unconscious, harmonious base where nobody cares about the difference between "ah"s and "oh"s, in most parts of my life I like communication to be precise, clear without ambiguity, direct, unmistakable. I don't like blabla and small talk.

woman enjoying herself on the carpet of Daniel Bauer's studio in Barcelona

The same applies to visual language. There is a flood of vacuous images, copies of copies of a once maybe original idea, old jokes (dick-sandwiches), photoshopped to death, like a text of beautiful words saying precisely: nothing.

An image says more than a thousand words, they say. But what if those thousand words are completely meaningless?

Just the same as in literature where there are great writers whose texts are so strong that they affect you just as if you actually would live the described situation, there are photographers whose work already on first sight, even more after lingering over it for a moment, transmit a message and let you be immersed in the other world the artist opens for you.

I've got something to say!
Yana by Daniel Bauer

But because images talk to the beholder just like words to the reader, the given information might be as precise as possible, but of course there will always be many, if not the majority, who don't understand or misunderstand the message. And just like the jovial guy whose empty hahaha-hihihi-jokes attracts much more in a party than the person who has to say something profound, original and therefore always controversial, the easy to understand image, already seen in countless versions, will have much more likes on facebook than a true piece of art. In a visual world, where choosing the right instagram app is considered as being creative, the crowd will only "like" it after that some "important" people have repeated many times that this is important artwork. They "like" it not because they really like or even understand it, but because they don't have their own criteria and so simply like what everybody likes.

Don't get me wrong: I love my work, but I don't want to put my skills not even into proximity of the mastery of the great photographers of the past and the present. But my goal is to create art images with a clear, direct and unambiguous expression. As an artist I am on a constant search for perfection, thus breaking rules and less and less considering what generally is seen as good, correct, appropriate.

May you like it or not: it's what I have to say.