burlesque performer

When pressed to name their favorite feature, people other than The World’s Best Asexual Erotic Photographer would probably point to any other part of this image than Jo’s hands. But for me, it’s the hands, all the way.

I adore photographing strong hands. Two of my favorite people in the world – my wife and my friend, Erin – are nurses and they have strong, weathered hands full of stories and character. Whenever I share a photo of one with the other the response is invariably “nursing hands!”

Why do I dig hands? Because if you hold to the old adage that “light illuminates, shadow defines,” then hands, with their veins, muscles, nails, fine hairs, tendons, and bones, all in extremely close proximity to each other, are infinitely more fascinating than, say, a thigh. This is the internet, so someone is going to take that as being anti-thigh and that is not the case, but hands have an additional benefit that thighs do not: they are mobile. With hands you can obscure, pinch, pull, squeeze, twist, dangle, make rude gestures, contain, barely contain, stretch, or even create a frame or leading lines. Look again at the image above. Can you do that with a thigh? No, you cannot.

Take that, thighs!

(Why do I get the feeling I’m going to have to pander to the pro-thigh lobby in a future post?)