27 August

Article from Model Society: Mature Nude Models

Model Society: An essay about mature nude models

Maria: The Advantages of Maturity
By David Bollt on August 20, 2014

Maria started modeling at age 43 with a remarkable passion and dedication, that helped her transcend expectations of what a model is supposed to be.

She embraces herself and others as being beautiful, each in their own unique light. Maria truly sees the things that others may view as imperfections, as her individual signatures.

What was your inspiration for becoming a model?

I started my career when I became 43 years old. My children went to the next schools, and I wanted to get to work again and have a passion in life. Modeling is some sort of dream for lots of girls/women. I just stepped into the modeling world, signed in at agencies, created a website, signed up on forums, worked on my portfolio (on TFP base) for a long time. I learned by failure and success.

My age has been an advantage as there are not much older , new-come, models around who are fresh faces in the market and willing enough to travel, work hard at rates which are not based on five figures. I never represented myself as young and frustrated, but as a lady who is proud of her age, her body, her looks and is still willing to learn and to grow (old) hahahaha….

15 August

Oxford Encyclopedia of Photography - History of Erotic Photography and Art

Erotic photography is particularly difficult to define and delimit. Occupying a fluid position between the academic nude and pornography, definitions of it have varied from period to period, influenced by shifting sensibilities and moral standards, and by authors' more or less overt or conscious intentions. Arguably any nude photograph, simply by virtue of its realism, was capable of appearing erotic to 19th-century viewers, so that even the most coldly academic studies were banned from display in photographers' windows. The exhibition in 1857 of Rejlander's rather chaste composition The Two Ways of Life shocked the public because the right-hand portion of the picture presented, with the most moral intent, nude women in lascivious poses. Nudes were officially excluded from photographic exhibitions until the last years of the 19th century, when soft focus and the artistic ethos of the pictorialists finally gave them the right to appear in public.

30 July

What makes vintage models so appealing?

            When viewing vintage photography, it becomes immediately apparent that many figure models of the 1950's and 60's, and even 70's, were larger.  They were not "out-of-shape", but neither were they misled by the cultural force-feeding of the glamour of wafer-thin models and the seige of advertising from the fitness industry. Many of them appeared to be healthy and vigorous young women, even if they may have been a little soft or pliant. Sometimes the women may have seemed too large, perhaps having dangerous-looking breasts or ponderous bottoms, but there is something authentic and uncontrived about them that enhances the whole experience. What makes vintage figure photography so alluring is its "realness", whether the women are buxom, or skinny, or plain, or ugly - it is the relative naiveté of that moment in time that makes it uniquely appealing. There are certainly many women who possess a true hourglass figure these days, but they seldom grace the pages of magazines or the big or small screens of movie watchers. Perhaps there is an equal percentage of the population today, but they seem harder to flarge breasts, and many models throughout the years have fascinated viewers with their endowments. Interestingly, some models, like Roberta Pedon , who had an overwhelmingly pronounced bosom, were actually quite petite in other respects, though still having the  soft roundness at the hips and belly. Despite the popular conception, and the above definition, buxomness implies more than just large breasts - it is suggests aspects like bell-shaped hips, a round, "bubble-like" posterior, a broad ribcage and/or a slightly convex belly
                                                         copyright JaypegNudes

16 July

Kenneth Clark on the conception of "The Nude"

The English language, with its elaborate generosity, distinguishes between the naked and the nude. To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word "nude," on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed. In fact, the word was forced into our vocabulary by critics of the early eighteenth century to persuade the artless islanders [of the UK] that, in countries where painting and sculpture were practiced and valued as they should be, the naked human body was the central subject of art

Nude Photography For Grown-Ups

It's doubtful you'll see lascivious, phony poses displayed by the models.  They are simply women from all backgrounds that feel comfortable about nudity.

Nude blonde