I’m teaching History of Photography for the first time this semester. It is really all consuming. My bathrooms need cleaning, there is nothing in the fridge but film and condiments, and I’m dreaming about my lectures, but nonetheless I’m really enjoying this new teaching challenge.

The biggest challenge for me may be lecturing on the nude. I just feel absurd discussing the female body as a mere arrangement of form or as the manifestation of not so secret desires. I found myself really beating around the bush (find a pun if you wish) when trying to handle Weston’s nudes in front of a room of college students. Even his “Artichoke, Halved” had me commenting awkwardly on its bodily equivalent.

Meanwhile, I find Weston’s most unabashed nudes the most fascinating. They are awkward, lovely, terrible (in the best sense of the word), and simultaneously psychologically transparent and opaque.