Radiant identities : photographs by Jock Sturges / introduction by Elizabeth Beverly ; afterword by A. D. Coleman

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Sturges: There are photographs that I don't take now that I previously would have taken without any thought at all as to any misinterpretations. The truth is that people who are naturists, who are used to being without clothes, are unself-conscious about how they sit around, how they throw themselves down on the ground, how they sit in a chair, how they stand. They don't think about it; it's not an issue. There's nothing obscene about them. Before, I'd photograph anything. I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body. Now, I recognize that there are certain postures and angles that make people see red, which are evidence of original sin or something, and I avoid that. I don't shoot that any more. But it's difficult. At one point, [my wife] Maia found me crossing legs, or avoiding angles, or giving instructions which inadvertently were instructing young people that some aspect of what they were doing was inherently profane, some aspect of who they were inherently were profane. I've had to relearn how I work with people so that if and when I do avoid different things I don't send any messages in doing so. I'm the last person who has any desire to instruct anybody in shame. That's no errand for me. For Sturges, these changes are part of the continuing saga of legal challenges and controversy surrounding his work. On April 25, 1990, FBI agents and San Francisco police officers raided his studio, seizing his cameras, his prints, his computer--everything relating to his occupation as an internationally recognized fine-art photographer. Art communities, both in San Francisco and nationally, rallied around Sturges, his work and the legitimacy of respectful nude photography of children and adolescents. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors denounced the raid and a San Francisco grand jury refused to indict Sturges on any charges. In our society there's so much shame attached to sexuality in a lot of social milieus that sexual abusers here on the average have had something like 70 or 100 victims before they're finally caught. In Holland where the age of sexual consent is, I think, 13, the average is vastly lower--it's like three or four. That's because people tell much sooner, because shame is absent. Supporters of Randall Terry and his organization, Operation Rescue--best known for their protests against abortion clinics--take credit for bringing the books to the attention of prosecutors by such actions as physically destroying books in Barnes & Noble stores. The recent indictment in Alabama describes the work of Sturges and British photographer David Hamilton as "obscene material containing visual reproduction of persons under 17 years of age involved in obscene acts."

Metro: Focus a little on how that affects how you see your work. Isn't what you're calling the sensuality of children or pubescent teenagers a major part of what you go for, of what makes a photo of yours work? To this Sturges responds: "This is pretty chilling language because, in fact, the people in my pictures are not engaged in any acts at all. They are living in contexts that are naturist, which is to say that when it's warm and people feel like it, they don't wear clothes.Now, on the second level, there's what happens after the photographs are made. But I no longer control that. It's not at all hard for me to imagine that there are some aspects of society that will buy my book, buy my photographs, who will look at them and have 'impure thoughts.' There are also people out there who buy shoe ads and Saran Wrap and all manner of things, who have impure thoughts. I can't really do anything about those people, except hope that, if they attend to my work closely enough, that ultimately they'll come to realize that these are real people. People need to realize that a cultural war has been declared here," Sturges says strongly. "A virulent, aggressive minority has decided that Americans don't know themselves what it is they should see, and need to be protected by people who are wiser than they are, even if they are only a tiny sliver of the population. This represents a whole new level of attention to the arts by repressive forces. It's very scary, and it has to be withstood." Very naturally, the ages of consent in Europe are vastly lower than they are here, in recognition of the fact that when you have people involved with sexuality, you may as well make it legal so that you can deal with them better about it, so that they'll talk to you and you can educate them.

Sturges: Western civilization insists on these concrete demarcations. Before 18, physically you don't exist; after 18, you exist like crazy.Sterngold, James (September 20, 1998). "Censorship in the Age of Anything Goes; For Artistic Freedom, It's Not the Worst of Times". The New York Times . Retrieved February 17, 2013. Based on the Eye Mama Project, a photography platform sharing a curated feed by photographers worldwide who identify as mamas, the Eye Mama book brings together more than 150 images to render what is so often invisible―caregiving, mothering, family and the post-motherhood self― visible. We're really blind in this country. People don't see the extraordinary inconsistencies. I think the average age for the loss of virginity for female children in this country now is like 14 1/2 or 15. There's this vast epidemic of unwed mothers and teenage mothers, and yet we have an 18-year-old age of consent which makes them all felons. If the age of consent were lower, and you could talk to these children intelligently and not have to worry about school boards and PTAs going apoplectic if you mention the word condom, let alone sex and making people intelligent about it, probably we'd have a whole lot more intelligent take on the whole thing. As soon as you forbid something, you make it extraordinarily appealing. You also bring shame in as a phenomenon. My hope is that the work is in some way counter-pinup. A pinup asks you to suspend interest in who the person is and occupy yourself entirely with looking at the body and fantasizing about what you could do with that body, completely ignoring how the person might feel about it. That's of no interest to people who make pinup photography. They don't care who the woman is, what tragedies or triumphs that person's life might encompass. That's of absolutely no relevance. Grand Jury Indicts Barnes & Noble for Books Depicting Nude Children". Los Angeles Times. February 19, 1998 . Retrieved February 19, 2013.

Metro: Having been through all that you've been through, I can't imagine how you can take photographs now without having legal concerns somewhere in your mind.Sturges: I've only once had a model go in that direction, and she was on her way there before I met her. A remarkably narcissistic human being. The principal way that I work is that I tell people not to move when they're doing something that I like. It's almost always something relatively improbable, which is to say, not a glamour pose, not the arms behind the head, not that kind of thing. The message is that who you are naturally is what I like the best. Virtually always I get my best pictures when everybody thinks the shoot's done. I'll go to do a shoot, I'll spend five or six hours at the beach with people, and when people think I'm all out of film, then they really relax and I get my good pictures. Hopefully the message is that you don't have to pose and put on makeup and be glamorous to be admirable. You're most admirable when you're the most human. I hope that's the message that my work delivers. Some of these people were bugged by the FBI in the worst imaginable way. They were interviewed very, very aggressively. They're all still willing to let me take their pictures; they think the FBI was completely full of it.

That dichotomy between the public consumption of the work and my intent and practice in making it is an uneasy one for me, on occasion. Sturges: They like being taken seriously as people. After they've been in the process for a while they realize they get all the pictures that we do--the families get a copy of every photograph that I take--and they begin to really enjoy being thought of as beautiful. We live in an age where anonymity is growing in magnitude like a bomb going off. The media stars are becoming more and more powerful, and as they are increasingly powerful, we are increasingly ciphers. The distance between their lives and our lives is growing all the time. Children feel absolutely invisible in this, unnoticed, and as if they can make no difference. The world is shrinking as we see more and more of it in the media, and the more we see of the world, the smaller we are, the more aware we are of how insignificant any one of us is. Beem, Edgar Allen (January 3, 2008). "Catching Up with; The Way of All Flesh". Photo District News. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 . Retrieved February 23, 2013. Metro: How does that work for the models? I know that you give them ongoing control over their images.Nothing unusual has happened recently around the name of the photographer, he still continues to do photography and, despite numerous conflicts, adheres to the chosen concept. The Eye Mama book is a photographic portfolio showcasing the mama narrative and the mama gaze, what female and non-binary photographers see when they look at, and into the home. Sturges: Sexually. Before 18, nobody has anything in their pants; after 18, they have everything in their pants. It's ridiculous. The truth is that from birth on we are, to one extent or another, a fairly sensual species. There isn't a person alive who doesn't like being caressed. Children masturbate as early as 1 1/2 or 1 year old. They do it spontaneously and without any thought that there's anything evil about making themselves feel good. That's a sensual experience in their lives, one that should remain entirely the property of the child, as it were. Nobody is going to argue, last of all myself, that it should become involved to any extent in any adult experience of sexuality. But the truth is that Homo sapiens is a sensual species. I think all species are, to one degree or another. Bodies of Evidence: After his photographs of naked adolescents were confiscated by the U.S. government, Sturges says the FBI went on to harass his models in 'the worst imaginable way.' My work hopefully works exactly counter to that. That's my ambition: that you look at the pictures and realize what complex, fascinating, interesting people every single one of my subjects is. They're all different. I don't photograph any two people who are remotely the same.