Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Homage to Helmut Newton

Welcome to sex and virtual landscape homage to Helmut Newton by Paolo Bade. I would like to present two fantastic photographers Helmut Newton and Paolo Bade. Newton a real life famous photographer and Bade a second life fantastic photographer. I was presented to Newton work by Paolo a long time ago when I was invited to be a model. This was my first expressive work as a model in SL. Now as a journalist I have the opportunity to present Helmut Newton and Paolo Bade work.

In my last article I was joking with the possibility to be inside Van Gogh painting. This made me think about my work as model. For my surprise talking to Paolo about my photos from his first exhibition he told me about the re-exhibition of “sex and virtual landscape” with a new visual approach. I was delight with the possibility of making an article about it. If you are interested in modern photography, you really have to see this! This is a well done exhibition with 14 Paolo Bade work based on the real Helmut Newton nude photos and I am one of the models. Located at Avatrait Gallery, Simuality (10, 240, 396)




Helmut Newton was a German-Australian fashion photographer noted for his nude studies of women. As a fashion and female nude photographer, he appears in the most important magazines such as "Vogue", "Elle", "Queen", "Stern" and "Playboy".

Newton is a master of beauty and cultivates an extremely personal erotic vision. He says about himself: "I am superficial, my images aren't deep. Good taste is the anti-fashion, the anti-photo, the anti-woman, the anti-eroticism. Vulgarity is life, is fun, the desire for extreme reactions."

The prevailing scenery in his photos are beaches, fashion, or the halls and rooms of large hotels. Although his eroticism is superficiality, taken to extremes, the plasticity of the work is wonderful.

His models, cold, severe and disturbing are the exact opposite of Hamilton's - which are delicate and fragile. His greatness lies in his unique vision of the “erotic” in photography.

Among his published works, we can cite "White Woman", "Sleepless Nights" and "Big Nudes".

In many ways Helmut mocks the fashion industry as he strengthens it. He blatantly exposes a side of it that is difficult to detect or absent in other fashion photography. Take for example one of his better known works 'Here They Come!'. In a strange way the nude depiction lacks much of the sexuality you'd expect, due to aggressive posturing. Their nudity has become dress, they are in essence fashion warriors. They say, 'Look, but don't touch. Look, we are coming... but not for you.' They send the message, as with fashion, 'Look and die with desire.' While this may not be the desire of the beholder, it is definitely that of the fashion wearer.

I was thinking about this and decided contrast Newton photo with a beauty blue dress with a blond hair walking straight and strong. This reminds me why Paolo choose me as a model for the Big Nude. He told me I represented the strong woman Newton shoot. According to him my attitude was determinant to be chosen. This must be because I am an Avalanche! LOL.

Yet whether his subject is man or woman, clothed or unclothed, Newton's forte is his role as the grand seducer. "My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain. Most of my work is meant to be funny. Because I'm quite timid myself”.



Helmut Newton : "I don't know, I didn’t look at it that way. It's just that if the theme had something to do with my life, past or present, it seems a nice idea to put myself in it. I would not put myself into an advertising shot. There has been a series for Vogue, in '79 or '80, they asked me to wear fashion, and then I got this idea. I did it in the Paris Vogue studio, because it was a place I knew well and around which much of my life had evolved. It's a very personal picture, that's why it's one of my favorites. There is first of all me, with my camera, but there is also June, who has got a wonderfully funny expression while she looks at my naked model, there is the Vogue Studio, with the clothrack, the door to the street is open, you see the cars parked on Place du Palais Bourbon, a place that I have known for twenty two years, where I had taken thousands of pictures, especially during Haute Couture Collections. The photograph has all the little signals of my life : my models, my camera, my wife, the studio, the Place du Palais Bourbon. That's what I call an autobiographical picture. It's a very good exercise, to me all these are exercises."

This self Portrait for me is one of the most interesting photos. It shows the door open to the street inviting us to come inside. Newton almost always wear high heels and in sometimes only that. So this is my homage to Helmut. I love this beautiful fashion shoe.

Helmut was a man that liked to push his own limits. Newton says that his work with nudes served to liberate him. "The point of my photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to”. Leesha Oh describes and compare very well Paolo’s talent with Newton’s. Paolo’s photos are black and white and featured strong women nudes. Perhaps it is their European sensibility… Paolo’s Italian eye and Helmut’s German, neither seemed to see the women as objects or commodities but as elemental, sensual, and human. Though Paolo’s artwork does not incorporate elements of fetishism and bondage to the degree that Helmut’s did… he does work in the meta-verse of SL.


This photo gave Paolo the idea to recreate in SL Newton work. The original photo is by Jemima Stehli and on the surface it can objectified as Newton’s original. So this became my manifesto, to recreate in SL Newton's images, accurately, trying to offer the viewer at least a small part of the feeling originals can do.

In her works over the past few years, Jemima Stehli (1961, London) appears in the work herself, as subject or object, most often as both. In After Helmut Newton’s ‘Here They Come’, 1999, Stehli has recreated Helmut Newton’s iconic image Sie Kommen, with herself as the stiletto-ed, naked Amazon striding towards the camera. Newton’s original is so accurately and minutely reproduced, Stehli’s hair and stance resemble almost exactly that of the original model.


This is me shoot from Paolo Bade and Camilla shoot by Newton. A fun story in the shoots was about my breast. I needed to make a small breast because my hands were inside my body in the pose animation. This was very comic because it this is possible only in meta-verse.
My motivation for the shoots was not the picture itself. Not even the meaning of the original shoots, “a strong woman”. I was motivated with aid concept and the first exhibition helped support the second Life Ubuntu Project.

With his Big Nudes, in the 1980’s Helmut Newton created a quite unprecedented long-term bestseller. Simultaneously, it provided a concentrated image of his aesthetic agenda. Powerful women were presented in all their naked truth – without fig leaves or fashion frills. This series of black-and-white photos, produced between 1979 and 1981, also marked a stylistic change in Newton’s work. Elaborate layouts full of luxury and decadence gave way to an unambiguously formulated and monumental statement – "Here they come!" Dressed only in their indispensable high heels, Newton’s amazons self-confidently paraded on show. They rippled their muscles and marched individually as well as in formation toward the observer. Helmut Newton’s classic work was published by us in 1990 for the first time. To date, 45,000 copies have been printed worldwide and the 9th edition is on its way!


Well isn’t this all about healing for the weekend? Let us have fun!! What I do to my readers! Almost got kill by the plane. LOL! The exhibition has some fun attractions where you can actually get inside the atmosphere and feel like you are part of the scene.
Newton risked life and limb for a great photo, as in 1967 when duplicating a scene from Hitchcock's ''North by Northwest'' for a Vogue shoot. Newton directed the pilot to make the lowest approach possible, but the plane nearly crashed when he accidentally gave the wrong signal.


Here I am again playing as a model!
For this photo Paolo almost gave up he had. Great you didn’t Paolo. He travelled a lot in SL to find the right landscape but with little result. Then Willow Turas help him find the right place.


Ok at the end of the exhibition you will find this relaxing place. Touch the white ball and go inside this fantastic relaxing and surprise place.

Anna Avalanche wear:
AA Trade Company, Cleary (111, 69, 113)
  • Necklace: Dolphin FEMALE — 300L
  • Face Light: FaceFX Designer v1.3 — 375L

Audacious - DARE TO BE DIFFERENT, Oleander (130, 118, 29)
  • Dress: Audacious (That Night) Dark Blue — 99L
  • Audacious (Own Class) Grey — 99L
  • Audacious ( Bade) — 99L


ZHAO Shoes HQ, Agard (225, 22, 24)

  • Shoes: "JENNY" BLUE w/colour change ribbon — 400L