Photographer Morality?

This is one of the models I've been working with for about 3 years now. We went out to the desert for a session and had a great time.

I thought en excerpt from Edward Weston's Daybooks might be appropriate.

E. Weston was living in Mexico with one of his models, Tina Modotti (who was a fine art photographer in her own right), while his wife and three of his children were in California. The situation caused quite a stir and lots of gossip.

A letter,

It naturally came from an American who "thought it was disgraceful and wouldn't send her daughter to me - to such a house to be photographed."...
I accept the loss of a sitting. I can draw in my belt, use one sheet less of toilet-paper per day, eat one less tortilla, and buy one spike of nardos instead of two. Poor woman, I would not hurt your daughter. I am far less dangerous than the sexually unemployed. Do you ask your butcher his moral attitude before buying a slice of ham? Do you question how many women Caruso has slept with before purchasing tickets to the opera? Do you come to me for a portrait by a craftsman or to see a marriage certificate garnished with angels?

When I first started doing figure work I questioned whether I should post samples on my website or advertise that I did such work. This is a conservative area I live in and I wondered if it would negatively influence potential clients. I second-guessed both my right as an artist to show my work as well as the attitudes of my potential clients and their acceptance of my right to create and engage in figure work (a valid and accepted art form).

I eventually decided there was nothing wrong with what I was doing and I wouldn't be limited by the perceptions of other people.

Weston's quote addresses those perceptions as well as the issue of the business life versus the private life. Does what you do in your private life affect how you conduct business, can you be a "deviant" at home and an upstanding citizen in business and visa versa? Why do people care what you do in the privacy of your own home if it doesn?t carry over into your professional life? I suppose I have to qualify that to be "within reason". I don't know if I would want a meth addict as a cop, no matter how good they are, or a wife beater as a guidance counselor.

If you look at most of the great artists throughout history, though, many were depressed, drug and/or alcohol addicted, spouse abusing, philandering, generally not very social (or socially acceptable) individuals. Yet we revere their work. Sometimes I think to be an accepted artist a person should, or must, have some kind of significant fault, addiction, or other character issue. I don't have any of these faults, so maybe that's why I'm not famous. Me, I tell myself I don't really care what people think.