Jock Sturges

Jeremy said:

I would disagree with the first sentence here because, as Cheryl said, a pedophile may find a picture of a child fully clothed in a Sears catalog (do they still print those?) to be highly erotic. I fully agree with the statement that there is a gulf there and also add the distinction of intent.

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That is true, but I am not speaking of everyday things, rather about "kiddie porn".

Jeremy said:

I would say that depends on who is looking through the photos. For example, see this website: Dead Link Removed for Marian Rubin's book Naked Truths. In the book she discusses how she was arrested for taking pictures of naked children dancing on a bed.

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We are speaking to the same point here. The fringe has too much sway.

Jeremy said:

Oh, Suzanne, I know I'm taking it to an extreme, but I just wanted to follow the logic of the statements. I don't think negative = imprison, either, but with this specific case it did happen as Joe Semien was imprisoned. Sturges was never imprisoned, but he had the money to hire a lawyer.

Source: Dead Link Removed (which is a great repository for information on censorship).

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Just to clarify - Jock was never even formally charged. By anyone. He was merely accused.

Tim M said:

Just to clarify - Jock was never even formally charged, by anyone. He was merely accused.

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Yes, but it should also be mentioned that:

The Taskforce (FBI taskforce) progressed to searching his apartment and all his belongings, where as Sturges called an attorney to represent him. After three and a half hours, all of Sturges equipment, photographic work, business related material and personal reference items were confiscated along with a box of negatives belonging to photographer, Ken Miller.

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From the same page referenced above: Dead Link Removed

gandolfi said:

I am not fond of him, but that is maybe a long winded story as to why..

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I'll read it, but I also think the hell with Jock Sturges.

At best he's just a controversy bottom-feeder.

walter23 said:

I'll read it, but I also think the hell with Jock Sturges.

At best he's just a controversy bottom-feeder.

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That's a bold statement. But it is just that - a statement. Unless you can otherwise back it up actually facts and not just hearsay.

walter23 said:

I'll read it, but I also think the hell with Jock Sturges.

At best he's just a controversy bottom-feeder.

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What a load of crap. He photographs people, which I am beginning to think are the only interesting subjects (yeah, send in the landscapers--I'm still bored by most of them), and he does a better job of it than most humans on the planet.

It seems to me that there are two potential issues with Sturges' work.

1. Some viewers automatically view a photograph more as a reminder of an event than as an artistic image. And when they see an image that involves a nude subject, they tend to imagine things about the events surrounding the making of the photograph. This is probably an extreme case of the point made by Anais Nin. And by the way, cinematographer Norman Seider says that a good still photograph will always stimulate the viewer to construct a myth, with the still image forming the opening scene. There's a fundamental paradox here.

2. It is unfortunately true that some members of our society have problems that can be stimulated by seeing an image of a nude subject, regardless of the intention of the maker of that image. Pedophiles are everywhere - witness the recent events in Florida where the reported number of registered sex offenders living close to the home where the child went missing earlier this week has caught the attention of the media.

Both of these observations raise an interesting question; to what degree are we, as photographers, responsible for the behavior of those who view our images. Part of me wants to say that I should be able to photograph whatever I want, and I shouldn't be held responsible (or constrained) for making photographs that unfortunately stimulate an inappropriate response by the viewers who are either ignorant, immature, or who lack fundamental control over their own actions. On the other hand, I understand that as a member of society, I have some responsibility for how my actions impact on others - to use the old judicial example, the right to free speech doesn't give me the freedom to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater.

I don't find Sturges' work (or Sally Mann's family pictures, or Timothy Greenfield-Sanders pictures of porn stars) to be offensive, but I can understand that there is a line somewhere between that work and say, some of the more outrageous pornography that is readily available on the web. And I can understand that the line may be fairly hazy - work that might be perfectly acceptable in a serious art gallery might be totally inappropriate in a show hanging in a shopping center. and I also have to admit that I may not always be smart enough to know where the boundary should be.

Many years ago I took a managerial course at work in interpersonal communications. One of the key messages in that course was that it is critical for a communicator to anticipate how the message will be received, and shape the presentation of the message in a way that it will be received in the way that it is intended. I think there is an element of that involved here - as photographers, we are trying to communicate. We need to anticipate the reaction of viewers to our images, and use some judgment in deciding where to show what. Self-censorship is always better than third-party censorship.

LOUIE,

WELL WRITTEN ,

BUT

if you were to read the interview with Sturges that this thread is all about , he says himself that he was starting to do that exact thing, you propose above, while photographing and his own wife told him to stop!!!!!!

self -censorship is not the answer , you must follow your soul or put it up. I would not care if one other person saw this work , I would still do it . that is why it has to be , first and for most, work that satisfies you, this hits the very core why I do photography , because I have to !!!!!!!

walter23 said:

I'll read it, but I also think the hell with Jock Sturges.

At best he's just a controversy bottom-feeder.

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I don't know about everyone else but I consider a controversy bottom-feeder one who creates the controversy themselves in order to gain recognition. That does, in no way, resemble Sturges. The hellatious nightmare of events that was unleashed on him in 1990 was not of his own construction.

He has endured and maybe, maybe not, profited from the event. Would you in the same situation not take any small advantage that you could take form a similar event? I am not saying that he has or hasn't milked it; but if I, myself didn't take full advantage of such a situation, I would consider myself a damn fool.

Cheryl Jacobs said:

Suzanne, it's funny how subjective art is. I've always found Weston's nudes a bit cold and technical.

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I have as well. When I look at some of the nudes of Charis, I see his work with peppers as all of one style. They remain wonderful, but to me she appears as an object.

To me, anyway.

For those of you who are interested, I now have images posted in the interview with Jock.

There is also an audio file at the end of the interview a lot of people seem to be overlooking.

I am obviously familiar with Sturgis. This thread motivated me to learn a bit more and it seems common knowledge that he did engage in sex with a 14 year old girl who later made a movie about it.

This from the Harvard Film Archive:


When Jennifer Montgomery was in prep school, the then-teen future filmmaker had an ardent affair with teacher Jock Sturges, later infamous as the "art" photographer of pubescent boys and girls. In this narrative film, done in the style of an educational documentary, Montgomery recreates her very troubling relation with Sturges and also, years later, the odd aftermath. The FBI contacted her to testify against the photographer in a pornography case. Montgomery had to balance a chance for revenge against a repugnance about informing to the FBI. Also, she is a feminist who honors the First Amendment, and believes in foregrounding issues of sexuality in art. Montgomery’s ambiguities are all here in this thoughtful, certainly sexually provocative, work.

Now, given this information, it is not such a leap to at least suspect Sturgis is up to no good with respect to underage girls. I know that the fancy artist perspective is to give a pass to the gifted (See Roman Polanski, another infamous pedophile/rapist) but seriously...any of you with 14 year old daughters letting Sturgis babysit?


Montgomery is a photographer and film professor at Cooper Union School of Art in New York, and here she takes a fictionalized look back at a forbidden affair she had at a patrician Northeastern boarding school in the 1970s.

Montgomery has made no secret that the photographer in the film is based on San Francisco photographer Jock Sturges, with whom she claims she had the affair.

It's an artists-and-models pattern that has been played out countless times, and that's part of the point of the film. There are frequent allusions to artists' using young models as more than subjects. But although the topic is lurid, Montgomery's spare and often stunning sense of composition keeps a certain distance. She's lyrical, yet dispassionate, and the film, laced with a purposeful irony, seems a little forced and hollow.

Finally, Montgomery moves ahead 14 years and begins to assess the affair from the point of view of an adult. Here she is taken with the idea that ``I watched him watching me,'' and she begins to blame John for his vanity in having sex without her full consent. But there still seems a touch of naivete in her outlook. Her mother is more to the point, accusing John of rape and putting him down as a boring artist, too.

Oh, OK. I understand. Suspicion is as good as a conviction. Who knew? As long as it says so on the internet, and as long as someone claims it, it must be true. Got it.

I would like to know what "common knowledge" means. In these days, with the Internet providing the means by which to unleash chain letters and urban legends, what exactly is "common knowledge"? Is it enough to not have evidence otherwise? How do you prove a negative? How does one exactly prove innocence?

Jock SturgES was very thoroughly investigated for years. If there have still been no charges filed, despite the government's best efforts, it seems to me that "common knowledge" is a bit helpless and useless.

Just out of curiosity....isn't Sturgis the site of a big motorcycle rally? As opposed to a famous photographer?

Cheryl Jacobs said:

Jock Sturges was very thoroughly investigated for years. If there have still been no charges filed, despite the government's best efforts, it seems to me that "common knowledge" is a bit helpless and useless.

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At least one would assume.

Good grief there are a lot of accusations flying around.

I think I’m a little bit late here. The thread developed already in different neighbor areas. Still, I would like to make a step back, to it’s primary issue.

Suzanne, I’m with you and every word you wrote here about your perception of Sturges’ work. Allow me, please, to add something more in the same vein:
Well, photographing nudes can be done in so many ways, but what Sturges chose, is to show these girls and women as females. He’s far from being a pornographer, because he doesn’t emphases the sexuality in his models. Instead, he abolishes any trace of humanism, any trace of feelings in them. They are simple females, bodies at the beach. Is this a fight against prejudices? I think Sturges mist his target. As you said Suzanne, to me too, his work tells nothing: it’s so empty.

Cheril, I wish to thank you very much for posting this link here. Because of it, I had the huge pleasure to read the interview with, and admire the work of Shelby Lee Adams. She is a fantastic artist. Thanks!

Explanation:
Fact is, I hate impressionism and it’s peak in the late postmodern art. Instead, I like romanticism and it’s extension in expressionism, as well as the “documentarism”. Between beauty and truth (the eternal dichotomy of any art), I give priority to the latest, in it’s either subjective or objective form.

phenix said:

...and admire the work of Shelby Lee Adams. She is a fantastic artist.

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Has anyone told Shelby!?

ChrisHensel said:

I am obviously familiar with Sturgis. This thread motivated me to learn a bit more and it seems common knowledge that he did engage in sex with a 14 year old girl who later made a movie about it.

This from the Harvard Film Archive:


When Jennifer Montgomery was in prep school, the then-teen future filmmaker had an ardent affair with teacher Jock Sturges, later infamous as the "art" photographer of pubescent boys and girls. In this narrative film, done in the style of an educational documentary, Montgomery recreates her very troubling relation with Sturges and also, years later, the odd aftermath. The FBI contacted her to testify against the photographer in a pornography case. Montgomery had to balance a chance for revenge against a repugnance about informing to the FBI. Also, she is a feminist who honors the First Amendment, and believes in foregrounding issues of sexuality in art. Montgomery’s ambiguities are all here in this thoughtful, certainly sexually provocative, work.

Now, given this information, it is not such a leap to at least suspect Sturgis is up to no good with respect to underage girls. I know that the fancy artist perspective is to give a pass to the gifted (See Roman Polanski, another infamous pedophile/rapist) but seriously...any of you with 14 year old daughters letting Sturgis babysit?


Montgomery is a photographer and film professor at Cooper Union School of Art in New York, and here she takes a fictionalized look back at a forbidden affair she had at a patrician Northeastern boarding school in the 1970s.

Montgomery has made no secret that the photographer in the film is based on San Francisco photographer Jock Sturges, with whom she claims she had the affair.

It's an artists-and-models pattern that has been played out countless times, and that's part of the point of the film. There are frequent allusions to artists' using young models as more than subjects. But although the topic is lurid, Montgomery's spare and often stunning sense of composition keeps a certain distance. She's lyrical, yet dispassionate, and the film, laced with a purposeful irony, seems a little forced and hollow.

Finally, Montgomery moves ahead 14 years and begins to assess the affair from the point of view of an adult. Here she is taken with the idea that ``I watched him watching me,'' and she begins to blame John for his vanity in having sex without her full consent. But there still seems a touch of naivete in her outlook. Her mother is more to the point, accusing John of rape and putting him down as a boring artist, too.

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Everyone needs to be extremely careful when putting this kind of stuff out there. This film is in fact a film who's character is BASED on Jock Sturges. It is not about jock Sturges.

The filmmaker has drawn inspiration from the situation that Jock found himself in in 1990. Think about it, would the FBI not have jumped at just a hint of a chance to convict him of statutory rape if they had the smallest piece of evidence?

It is no wonder that this man is so hesitant to open up to people. I am honored that he was willing to talk and do this interview with me. I do not take it lightly or as a trivial experience that he spoke with me, a total novice and absolutely unknown personality.

All of this unfounded accusatory bullshit is starting to make me understand what he goes through almost on a daily basis. It makes me sad.

Thank you Jock.

You can read the New York Times review of this movie who's character is based on Jock at the following link.

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=990CE0D71139F932A15750C0A963958260

billschwab said:

Has anyone told Shelby!?

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I am assuming that you are talking about the inaccurate gender reference? I am sure that Shelby would find it humorous.

Tim M said:

I am assuming that you are talking about the inaccurate gender reference? I am sure that Shelby would find it humorous.

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Kinda like a boy named Sue.

ChrisHensel said:

I am obviously familiar with Sturgis...

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This is a disturbing post. You make really damning accusations based upon a movie. You claim to be "obviously familiar with Sturgis," but you can't spell his name. You claim its common knowledge he had sex with minor, but I never read about it -- how common is it.

I think you need to back some of this up with links to respectable sources.

jd callow said:

This is a disturbing post. You make really damning accusations based upon a movie. You claim to be "obviously familiar with Sturgis," but you can't spell his name. You claim its common knowledge he had sex with minor, but I never read about it -- how common is it.

I think you need to back some of this up with links to respectable sources.

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Agreed. This is total BS and it makes me angry.

I am biting my tongue in so many ways that it hurts.

Cheryl Jacobs said:

I am biting my tongue in so many ways that it hurts.

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you know the saying.. don't.. feeeeeed.. the....

I realize, and that's why I'm holding my tongue. But I am one of those people with multiple pertinent perspectives, and I would love to share them, but I am going to have to hold back, and I regret that.