Irene wrote:
I just pissed in my pants

I just switched beverages!

RenPho wrote:
Fine art is the only one you can legally leave up when Grandma comes over for meatloaf night, though.

Yep
When grandpa shows up gotta switch to (artistic or not) glamor.

Jim Ball wrote:
Artistic nude - the model is on a plain backdrop with minimal props.  The focus is on the model's body.  may be B&W or color.  If model's cooter is shaved, it's glamour, not artistic.

Fine art nude - shot outdoors or indoors with so much junk in the picture that you have to hunt for the naked model.  Must be shot on outdated B&W film that somebody has had in their freezer for 20 years and hand printed on obscure fine art media paper imported from some eastern european country no one has ever heard of.

Glamour nude - Nekkid chick, usually posed in a motel room or up against a brick wall in an alley or old building. At least one shot in the set must have her ass in the air pointed toward the camera and her head down on her arms.  May be looking back over her shoulder at the camera.  Final image has so much photoshop skin smoothing that the model looks like a Barbie doll.

*facepalm* this whole ting made me lol. I definitely don't think fine arts include tons of props....buuuut oki....and I shave but that definitely does not make my photos (you can't find them on here) glamour. They are focused on the lines and my form (photographers skills and my shapes and definition). Many are black and white these surely qualify as artistic and fine arts and although shave you cannot see kittycat cause of my legs or the angle. Keepin it classy But even if you can see some kittycat and its shaved if the lighting and angles are in an artistic fashion not centering around the concept of sex...I still believe these are artistic or fine arts nudes as opposed to glamour which tends to focus on enhancing the models skin and communicating sexuality of all forms

Richard Tallent wrote:
Explaining the differences between these is like explaining the difference between English and Japanese.

As with spoken languages, most people can distinguish among them without knowing a lick of anything but their own language.

Someone familiar with a language can understand traits of the language, or themes, or patterns of speech and idioms without knowing the language itself. For example, I know that in Japanese, you wouldn't say the word "cousin" per se, you'd use a term that might include their gender, age in relation to yourself, and how you are related.

But without knowing the actual languages, you can't really grok how they are different, and any "rules of thumb" made by someone who does know them will just draw ire from someone who can point to an exception of that rule.

You can imitate a language without knowing it. I can make some decent Japanese-like sounds. A Japanese-speaking person would find my imitation at best idiotic and at worst terribly offensive, but people who only speak English might not be able to tell that I'm just imitating the language, or even if they know I'm doing so, can't technically point out how to tell the difference between my blabber and actual Japanese.

Likewise, someone can imitate traits commonly found in fine art photography, such as use of B&W, high contrast lighting, demure nudity, etc. without actually understanding the genre. And most people won't be able to tell the difference, or at least won't be able to nail it down to specifics. But the end result, to someone who actually speaks the genre fluently, will be as incomprehensible and infantile as my Japanese-sounding gibberish.

The same goes for glamour... I can't shoot glamour to save my life. Many years ago, I tried. I made glamour-like images, with the same wardrobe, the same models, the same lighting ratios, but since I haven't really studied the history of the genre, the great masters of it, etc., I was flying blind. I could  make the sounds, but anyone who knows the genre well enough to tell the difference between a David Mecey and a Scott Windiz could tell I was out of my league. My pin-up attempts were even more god-awful.

Some photographers and models are "multilingual" to some extent, and some really great ones are fully fluent in multiple genres, and can even blend them to bend each genre's definitions. I think that's why some photographers like Helmut Newton are revered by so many -- they were virtuosos in multiple genres and could create something that was simultaneously pure fashion, pure glamour, pure fetish, and damned good art. But if you try to follow suit without knowing those languages fluently, it ends up being like really bad Engrish.

That's a really terrific analogy!
Sadly, it won't make much sense to those of us who are monolingual.  Ah, well!

Jim Ball wrote:
Artistic nude - the model is on a plain backdrop with minimal props.  The focus is on the model's body.  may be B&W or color.  If model's cooter is shaved, it's glamour, not artistic.

Fine art nude - shot outdoors or indoors with so much junk in the picture that you have to hunt for the naked model.  Must be shot on outdated B&W film that somebody has had in their freezer for 20 years and hand printed on obscure fine art media paper imported from some eastern european country no one has ever heard of.

Glamour nude - Nekkid chick, usually posed in a motel room or up against a brick wall in an alley or old building. At least one shot in the set must have her ass in the air pointed toward the camera and her head down on her arms.  May be looking back over her shoulder at the camera.  Final image has so much photoshop skin smoothing that the model looks like a Barbie doll.

Funny