Bit of a long wordy blog this time around.well done to those that make it through this!
So this all unfolded a little while ago, But its taken me until now to want to write it all down. mostly for myself I'm i'm honest,
but i'm also very curious to know any other stories from other photographers shooting for the site or who shoot similar content.
I'm burying the lead slightly, but recently my girlfriend Kate and I split up after 4 years together, whilst its not entirely true to say that Suicide Girls was directly responsible for the separation, it was a fairly large factor, more specifically, the fact that I shoot for the site was a big factor and caused so many arguments over the past 3 years since I've been a member of the site and shooting content for it.
A wee bit of back story is maybe required, I met my (now ex) girlfriend through my photography, she was working as a model to help support her way through university, focused on mostly high fashion and editorial work, we met on a portfolio photoshoot and clicked pretty quickly, we went on to work together on probably 10 or 12 photoshoots and somewhere in the middle of those, we started dating and very quickly moved in together, we shared an enormous amount of things in common, and for the most part life was pretty good.
However, maybe about a year or so in to us being together, I was asked to shoot a set to submit to SG for at the time, new hopeful @maisie, a set I'm still really, really proud of and the first set I sold to the site. Kate was at the time, less than happy I was shooting it, not that she didn't trust me or was suspicious of my intentions, more that she felt the only person I should ever see naked, was her. I couldn't quite get my head around this point of view, I had shot several art nude images prior to this, had to do some life drawing at university of nudes, and generally hold the point of view that the human body is a beautiful thing and has been one of the cornerstone themes of artistic expression for as long as humans have been painting on walls.
At the time we agreed to disagree and I tried my best to never involve her in those shoots, or to talk to her about my work for the site, always thinking it was just that, work, but I carried on shooting sets with the ambition of becoming the first staff photographer for Scotland, I think we definitely have a need for one here, to cover Scotland and possibly even the North of England.
It would always cause a nights worth of argument and the same old things being said on both side every time I shot for the site,
When I sold sets, and received payment for the work, that softened the blow a little If it was able to pay for a meal out or go towards a holiday, something she could enjoy positively too, but always too little, too late.
In the end it has been a combination of my refusal to compromise on my work and the fact that my income can be quite unstable month to month, some months will be great, some not so great, that goes hand in hand with running ones own business.
i think she's just gotten too tired of the months when cash would be tight, bills were always paid, and we moved from nicer to nicer places, but it was never enough, and the SG thing kept coming round again and again.
It did one final time last month, when she decided to break up and move out.
I'm left having to pick up the emotional pieces and to work out how to keep the roof over my head now that my bills/rent etc have all doubled, though just now I have the oddness of her still living here a while longer, sharing the same bed still, but having no contact whatsoever other than civil chat about each others day.
Given how things had been for the last while and my absolute belief that I've done absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever in shooting content for SG, I'm finding it hard to feel to broken up about it all.
I've made compromises in my work so many times before in previous relationships only to have had them run their course and I'm left regretful of having not looked out for myself more!
I've never though of SG as being a sleazy or porny place, far from it, I think it's helped some of the girls I've worked with to find a new confidence in themselves and a new group of friends and like minded people, I think its an overwhelmingly positive site to be a part of. Maybe I'm naive given i've always viewed this type of work as being closer to the fine art nudes I've shot than to porn, I'm sure lots of girls and guys find the images on the site, sexually stimulating, I've always viewed them more like photos hanging on the wall in an art gallery, a celebration more of the female form, not just overtly in its sexuality.
Have any other photographers here found themselves fighting any of the same battles as I have over this?
Thanks for reading, my next new set is out in just over a week, with the gorgeous @blu once again.
This is kinda a SG homework assignment in a roundabout way, I guess this is how SG has changed my life most recently, I think it'll be for the better, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything....
@rambo @missy @bloghomework
