For Pleasure’s Sake
Radoslaw Pujan's Nudes
Polish photographer Radoslaw Pujan recently caught our eye with his sensual nudes. His work captures the vulnerable, tender side of his models, and possesses a timeless quality that makes them feel at home in any era. They could be decades old just as easily as they could have been taken yesterday.
“More making than taking photos, I enjoy both the process of preparing a photograph, and the moment when its final shape is revealed,” he explains in his artist statement. “In composing an image, all details are important, but above all, I expose the emotion.”
Hope, love, fear, courage, curiosity–the nuances of each model ring true in each photograph, including the ones that are more obviously posed. He shoots in medium format and film, embracing the slight natural blur it lends his models.
“It is true the photo is not razor sharp, but I find that gives a sculpture-like quality to the human body and enhances all its emotions,” he continues. “Additionally, I get beautiful contrasts, and natural colors you will never have in the digital world.”
Growing awareness of the biases embedded in the male gaze make it difficult to look at certain work sheerly for pleasure’s sake, rather than for its message or its context. However, the softness of Pujan’s work is so instantly comforting and inviting, it’s impossible to waste any energy questioning its motives.
Sometimes you just have to enjoy the gifts an artist presents, especially when they unwrap themselves.
