Features

This is where you'll find feature stories about authors, photographers, naked girls...pretty much anything and everything we can cull and aggregate from the universe of girls and books.

November Feature - Tim Haylock

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with photographer Tim Haylock and discuss his approach to taking pictures of women just the way we like them, you know, naked and reading. (To see any of the images below in a larger size, just click on them.)

NGBC: You've got a pretty extensive body of work. How long have you been at it?
TH: Well, I got my first camera when I was 6, so quite a while. I started shooting fairly seriously at 8 (with a fully manual 35mm rangefinder), and by 11 I was doing my own developing and printing.

I only got into studio work fairly recently, though, and I've been working with models on art nudes for about fifteen months at this point.

NGBC: What is your process/your approach to shooting women sans clothing?

TH: I tend to spend a week or two preparing for a shoot, but once I get into the studio I'm quite flexible and I usually improvise quite a lot. I also do quite a lot of post work in Photoshop, although I try to keep it subtle rather the over the top.

I approach nudes pretty much as my approach to any other kind of photograph - nudes are a slightly charged subject matter, but I try to treat them the same way as I would anything else. My main priority is producing an appealing image.

To be honest, I'm pretty much purely concerned with aesthetics. If the end result is visually appealing, then I'm satisfied - if people find anything deeper in the images that's great, but I don't go out of my way to embed meaning or allegory into the shots. Or at least, not usually.

NGBC: Of all the photos of girls reading naked that you've taken, do you have one that sticks out as a favorite?

TH: Probably this shot of Lottie it was the first one I took and I still think it's probably the strongest photograph.

I like reading, and I like naked girls! I think it's an interesting approach, and especially since I ask the girls to bring their own books along, I like to think it makes the images a little more personal than most of my other work.

NGBC: Everywhere we go, whether in our events, or just spreading the word, we find that this type of imagery is carrying an amazing power. Where do you think that comes from?

TH: I suspect it's the fact that reading is something purely cerebral, whereas most nude shots are pretty much purely physical. It means the viewer has to consider the actual personality of the model they're looking at - or at least more than just their body.

NGBC: That's an interesting thought. What do you, personally, find interesting about it?

TH: It's always interesting discussing the reading material with the girls.

NGBC: Tell us about this shot?

TH: I think the book kind of says it all! Erin is a big zombie fan, and we tried a few shots (including some with her preparing to beat off the zombie invasion with a tire iron and a plank of wood) but this was the one that I liked best.

NGBC: What about these? Our geekier members are going to lose their minds over them.

TH: Cadence is actually a big D&D gamer, so we thought it would be fun to do some shots of her kind of hiding behind the books. It worked pretty well, but of course now she has all the guys from her regular gaming group trying to convince her she should play like that all the time!

NGBC: This is our favorite Tim Haylock Naked Girls Reading shot. Tell us about it.

TH: Padrona is a friend of Cadence, so she wanted to do a shot in the same vein. The book here, though is entitled "Greatest Living English Poets" - a slightly misleading title, given that the book was printed in 1892. The age of the book made it look incredible, though, which is why we chose to really focus on it, leaving Padrona almost in the background (although oddly enough, most people still seem to notice her!).

NGBC: Oh! There she is!

For more information on Tim Haylock, and to see the rest of his work, visit www.timhaylock.com

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