your most difficult "job" ever... here is mine!

[gandolfi]

I've been contacted by a group of people in an association called "Open Farming" (direct translation).
this group is within the ministry of agriculture in Denmark.

here it is:

they think the average dane has a biased wiew of how the aesthetics is in a danish pig fram!!

we normally hear (and see) them, if something is wrong - not when all is good..

so - they want to make a huge exhibition, that will be travelling around Denmark, where I make my images in a modern pig farm...........

picture it for your selves:

I have to make nudes in a place where there will be hundreds of pigs.

they want to show two worlds of aesthetics colliding..

I have accepted, but have used some time to find a farmer, brave enough to lend me his farm..

I have the models (also brave ones!)

what I don't really have is ideas! how in the world can I make images that make sense (maybe they must be without sense?) in this kind of inviroment?

But this is not all.

I would like to go further.
I'd like to make images in a modern slaughter house - some images where I use a couple of dead pigs for some stills, and I'd love to get my hands in a couple of stuffed pigs! (but who does taxidermy on pigs??)...

the pictures will (I think) be made using my "Kill your darlings" method and made with liquid emulsion...

(maybe toned in pigs blood??)

I have NO idea whether I can pull this off, but it is the most difficult task I have had in my life, photographywise..

ideas?

[Svend Videbak]

Finally -- a suitable context for nude photography! (Joking.) What amazes me the most here is the courage of the Danish "open farming" society. They sure are open minded. Probably misguided. People don't want to know what happens in a pig farm, or what it looks like inside. They just want their bacon on Sunday morning. The stench of a pig farm, my God, it's the worst. But be that as it may, it sure is an aesthetic challenge. A little humour could easily go astray -- a picture in which you contrast the shape of a pig's "ham" with the rear end of a model, for example. All too easily you could touch upon sexuality/bestiality and get a very unhappy client (or happy?!). I don't know, this strikes me as a piggishly bad idea all round. Throw caution to the winds, go totally over the top, find a theme (maybe the pigs from Orwell's Animal Farm?) and run with it. Thow pig dung at each other. Smear it all over, write slogans on the barn walls with it like "Pigs of Denmark for a new aesthetic" and "Give us the vote" and "We like bacon too" or "Go oink yourself". Phew. You have quite a job! Can't wait to see the results. Rgds, Svend

[Pinholemaster]

Hey, at least you only have to make a photograph, how difficult is that compared to spending your entire life AS a pig farmer.

Life ain't difficult when making pictures. There are far worse things to do.

[bdial]

Wow. Quite the challenge as you say, but there are so many possibilities!
What if you depicted the models doing some of the chores, pouring feed into the feeding troughs, etc?

It sounds incredibly interesting.

[ilya1963]

Association of pig skin with skin of a nude female?! Well, at least it has the same tonality.

This idea supposed to make the pigs look good and healthy and nourished and ready for "slaughter" using beautiful models or do you make your models look like pigs

I don't know if you know this work here is some thing to ponder :


http://www.saudek.com/en/jan/fotogra...yp=f&l=0&f=469

ILYA

[rwyoung]

A MODERN pig farm if its waste management system is working properly and has a well tuned lagoon (lots of good bacterial munching away) isn't that bad. Yes, you can never quite get rid of the smell but it is managed. The problem comes when you get a few too many (or a lot too many) pigs for the containment and treatment system to deal with. Either by accident or because of cost cutting (greed).

Anyway, I like the idea of comparing the curve of the pig to the curve of the model. Just make sure she (he) wears boots. No barefoot in the pig barn. Not to put it in the wrong context but perhaps use a model with a bit more meat on the bone. Not in the insulting way that "pig" is used as an insult but because a well fed pig has a broad behind and you might need some more scale to your model.

And by the way, there is a long history of nudity and pigs in art. Porky Pig never wore pants.

[Nicole]

How about using the nudes female(s) as a "madonna" figure over a pig or two to lift their presence? Does it have to be the entire farm? Surely one or a couple of pigs would be representational enough? Good luck!

[blaze-on]

That's what I call earning your bacon..

[phenix]

You’re so lucky to get such a contract! Such an exciting challenging theme!
You surely need a project behind the images. You need to find the truth behind this contrast association of nudes with pigs. Or is it no contrast, but only resemblance? Be careful with the humor!

[noblebeast]

I see a running theme inspired by the "All men are pigs!" school of feminism. The possibilities are numerous and exciting.

Joe