'Nobody puts Baby in a corner.'
In the film Dirty Dancing, Johnny understands that Baby's sister has been getting the lion's share of attention, and to counter this, pulls her onto the dance floor to ensure she is given the spotlight. Corning others is usually not a great idea, but when photographer Nick S82 puts Connor in the corner, the results are hard to ignore.
It was specifically that corner, and the structure and balance it provides, that had me wanting to feature the Gillingham, England's photographer's work with the delectable Connor. I love the way Nick put together Connor's look. I love the glasses and that Connor although devoid of pants, is wearing just a dress shirt and tie. There is something very erotic about the sexy class nerd, being put into the corner, especially... without his pants. For Nick, capturing that pantless look, began when he began focusing on photography 'properly' while at University. Nick says that in many ways, he feels that what he's doing now has only evolved slightly since those university days.
'I knew a lot of "creatives" as a student, so there was always plenty of volunteers in terms of models. A few photographer friends decided that we would work purely on simple, "relaxed" shoots with assorted actors, musicians, artists, exhibitionists, etc that focused purely on the model using very basic non-descript backgrounds or settings. The idea was to see how much of the individual's "image", sense of style and use of body language would be projected. At that time we didn't want to show anything overtly or implicitly sexual, so female models were fully clothed but we allowed the males to go topless, as physical fitness or physicality in general was so important to their characters/personalities.'
After leaving University and making the switch to digital, Nick tried the broaden the scope and variety of the models I worked with, but by and large, it ended up being still actors, musicians and artist-types that put themselves forward. This led Nick to Model Mayhem and soon began being contacted by 'adult' performers interested in having more artistic nudes to include in their portfolios.
'I hadn't planned to start incorporating full-nude shots in the work but decided that this was as good and 'legitimate' a reason as any to give it a go. I had decided that I would stick to non-erotic nude work, so as to keep in line with what I thought the shoots were supposed to be about, but even that went out of the window rather quickly, as on only my second nude shoot, the musician I was working with was afflicted by a very persistent erection!'
After he grew more comfortable and confident with nude models, Nick decided to develop the original idea even further by working almost exclusively on full-nudes shoots. Nick still encourages his models the freedom to express themselves in their own ways, like his images, including Connor, who like wear clothing, but thankfully...only above the waist.
