No, it's not a sneak link to TubGirl.com. While writing the previous post about that Playboy Centerfolds book, I clicked to Amazon.com to get a link for the book itself, and on my search page for "playboy centerfolds" I saw a link to a book called
100 Naked Girls, by Petter Hegre. I didn't care about the book, but I clicked the link because I'm always seeing links to "Hegre Girls" on various male-skewing blogs, and I'd never considered that maybe that was someone's name. Yes, it's obvious in retrospect, but apparently this guy Petter Hegre is sort of a famous photographer, one who used to shoot all sorts of stuff, but now does basically nothing but nude female photography. I wouldn't really call it erotic, since the girls are just standing/floating/lounging there and staring at the camera, but it's what passes for non-porn nude these days.
Anyway, from there I Wikipedia'ed his name and found
his rather brief entry; I think I learned more about him from the Amazon.com reviews of his 100 Nudes book. Anyway, Wikipedia taught me that he's won some photography awards, that he's published a number of books of nude photos, and that he looks like a poor man's Fabio. There are also links to
a nude magazine he does the photography for, and
his own site, and I clicked those of out curiosity and also, let's face it, to see some boobies.
The magazine site didn't strike me as noteworthy, but I found something worth blogging about (yes, I'm getting there) on his site. Check out the
free tour page, and yes, it's covered in nude women, which I feel pretty safe predicting will make it NS for your W. There must be 80 or 100 thumbnails of his magazine covers, all of which can be clicked and enlarged. What I found fascinating though were the thumbs with super gigantic viewing options along the right side of the page. None of the pics are especially fascinating, and I find most of the models birdie-thin and not very attractive, but I was awestruck by the image quality. I don't want Petter's job, but I would like his camera.
Check out any of the 4000 pixel size shots, and while they're kind of a RAM test on my machine, they look simply amazing. Not for the quality of the composition, but for the detail a photograph that large provides. It's like a Super HD TV an inch from your face, and is literally larger than life. Here's a tiny clip of one shot; click it to see it larger and nuder, but how about the detail in this one? Every hair, every goosebump... it's almost down to the cellular level. Click the shot to see the full, 2724x4000, 1.4meg image, which is obviously NSFW. Hell, just this clip of her belly button might be, depending on your job/boss. Bit late with that warning, wasn't I?
This one is interesting too; from the thumbnail or even the
1000pixel size you wouldn't think much of it. But at
the largest size the pretty girl suddenly becomes sasquatch, with countless tiny hairs curling across her back and arms. Since the shot goes to her knees (and yes, shows her flappy girl bits) you can see that the hairs curl down around her lower back, before ending above her butt, and extend further down her thighs. I assume she shaves her legs up to her hip bones, but I'm left wondering about her ass. Does she shave up to her lower back, or are her buttocks about the largest naturally-hairless expanse on her entire body?
Lots of other shots are interesting too, but I'll leave curious parties to click them on their own time. Generally speaking, this I found these photos sort of like seeing Teri Hatcher in HD.
Disturbing. Not only don't I think the poster-size shots at Hegre are sexy, I actually find most of them pretty unappealing, with the female eye candy rendered far less enjoyable than it would be at 1/4 the size. Hegre's photography is quite uninspired, his models are birdy-thin and less than ravishing, and the giant photos far too... humanizing. I didn't look at all of the shots, but most of the models I viewed were fugged by some aspect of their body that the tremendous image quality brought into view. Nasty veins somewhere, labial razor stubble like a clearcut forest, discolored callouses on their toes, etc.
The photos were fascinating to view for the level of detail, but very unsexy, at least to my eye. It's ironic; I always criticize the Playboy photo style for being so blurry and soft focused and airbrushed and cliched, but if this is the alternative... maybe Hef knows what he's doing after all? If HD TV and huge images on computer monitors have taught us anything, it's that most people are really quite ugly, if you look closely enough.
Labels: photography, pornography
