The bare essentials of nude photography

In 1964, Peter Lacey published his book, The history of the nude in photography. He suggested that photography is “the last refuge of the nude”. If indeed the nude can still find shelter in photography is questionable considering current censoring policies on social media.

How did we end up here?

Photography’s first and most faithful love affair is with the nude subject. Since the invention of the daguerreotype by Louis Daguerre in 1839, images of nude women have circulated in society. But images cost a week’s salary, and did not exist on film negatives. This meant that the audience of these images was always going to be limited. “In the prevailing moral climate at the time of the invention of photography, the only officially sanctioned photography of the body was for the production of artists’ studies. Many of the surviving examples of daguerreotypes are clearly not in this genre, but have a sensuality that clearly implies they were designed as erotic or pornographic images”, says Peter Marshal, in his book, Nude Photography 1840-1920.

In 1841, William Fox Talbot invented the calotype process, which produced a glass negative from which multiple copies of an image were cheap to make. Consequently, nude and/or pornographic photographs became readily accessible. In France, erotic postcards spread widely and wildly and soon began to cross borders into other countries. At this time, the first issues surrounding the sharing of nude images surfaced, and became a legal matter. Decades later, the magazine was published in France targeting artists looking for nude poses. Prior to this, most of the nude images had shown models in awkward poses copying or resembling nude classical paintings. However, this changed with the work of E.J. Bellocq, during the earth 20th century, who took