Naked Rooms
Photographer Peter Gorman’s approach to the female nude is not only unique, it’s unforgettable. If you’re a fan of artistic photography, or certainly of erotic photography, as I am, you might come across one of Gorman’s photos at Nerve, Salon, or in the Australian fine art magazine Black + White and instantly recall if you’ve been exposed to his work before. The images are never less than startling, provocative; sometimes strangely claustrophobic, but always memorable.This is Gorman’s follow-up to his much praised monograph, Naked in Apartment 7 (Goliath, 2001), the black & white collection where Gorman managed to capture the often overpowering erotic presence of model after model in the tight confines of his tiny New York apartment. This time, Gorman takes us deeper into the intimate realm of real women, by traveling throughout the five boroughs of New York City to photograph his models where they live.Now, in full color, Gorman exposes us to Wall Street brokers, college students, law enforcement investigators, commercial pilots, actresses, artists, dancers; women as varied as the places they call home. Yet they share one thing in common: a willingness to uncover their bodies for the photographer and be photographed naked in their own rooms.From film to digital; from the comfort of his home to the unpredictability of other people’s apartments; from the stationary confines of strobe lighting to the mobility of one hand-held flash. These are a few of the significant shifts in direction Naked Rooms undertakes and the shifts have led to some decidedly entertaining new terrains.As a rule, Gorman prefers to use models who are unfamiliar to him in order to resist creating preconceived stories for his photographs. For the photo sessions in Naked Rooms, he also asked each model to resist the urge to clean her apartment prior to the shoot to keep the atmosphere as un-staged as possible. The result is that each photo has managed to capture a complex personal tableau in addition to an intimacy that’s sometimes as disquieting as it is erotic."I never know before hand," Gorman states, "how a model is going to behave in front of the camera, the level of exhibitionism that’s going to emerge. Sometimes the models who are the most shy and retiring are the ones who really come alive when the camera is on them. For the Naked Rooms sessions, since I was only using one hand-held flash, I basically told each model that I was going to chase her around her apartment with my camera. I had to have confidence that, as unpredictable as that was, somehow it was all going to work."  And here are the results of just how well that idea came together. Prepare to discover what real women are really up to when they’re getting naked in their own rooms.