לא רק מילים

with Richard Beck Peacock
Vaginas are so richly graced with color. Why did you choose to shoot this subject in blackand-
white?
There’s nothing more colorful than nature’s landscapes. However Ansel Adams shot his
mountains of Yosemite and other vistas of the West in black-and-white. And Edward
Weston chose black-and–white for his nudes. Someone once said that black-and-white
photography is like reading: the reader supplies the color and other sensations. That’s part
of its peculiar enjoyment.
Did you first experiment with color?
Yes, and I didn’t like it. Depending on your intentions, color is an overload with some
subjects, a distraction in a way. The vulva is almost too powerful when shot in color—to
me it suggests pornography. It can be too real. The viewer gets drawn into a purely sexual
response to the subject. That isn’t what I was aiming for here. In my research I noticed
that women looking at similar material would hurry through brightly lit, full color shots of
vaginas, yet they tended to slow down and study black-and-white photos. Perhaps color
unconsciously registers as vulnerability and it’s scary. I suspect that one is inclined to be
overwhelmed by the vibrant shades of vaginas and not pay attention to their exquisite lines
and other subtle physical characteristics.
So your intent was to create a different aesthetic?
Not at the start. I discovered my motive as the work developed. There’s much more depth in
black and white. This mode of photography plays in the gray scale from white to black. You
use these values to create separation and depth. Black-and-white renders those qualities
very strongly. When I worked on the prints, I was much more aware of the contours and
composition of each woman’s pussy—its solemnity.