bodies

The Athlete by Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein

(Photo credits:  The Athlete by Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein, via SocImages)

Thanks to fitness magazines and the weight loss industry, we've become acculturated to the notion that fitness looks a certain way.  This photo collection by Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein challenges our assumptions about athleticism by presenting Olympic athletes with an array of body types, ranging from the typical "shredded" bodybuilder look to bodies that we might view as "unhealthy" in a different context. 

American Apparel's Imagined Bodies

Line drawing of young woman's face

Cropped version of American Apparel ad by Boris Lopez
I hate to be talking about this, because I hate to be one of the many people giving American Apparel attention, but I can't help but find their recently released ads, which feature line drawings of nude, young-looking women, worthy of commentary. While American Apparel's ads usually contain some degree of nudity, their foray into line drawing rather than a particular photographic aesthetic seems to invoke, maybe too obviously, questions about the nature of pornography in a virtual world. More photos, which are not suitable for work, after the jump.

Visual Rhetoric, Inhuman Gazes, and the TSA

an image of a TSA body scan

Image via TripAdvisor

As the first big travel week of the holiday season approaches, there has been much discussion about the TSA’s new body scanners and “enhanced pat downs.” There is a lot to be said about both the scanners themselves and the images that comment on the controversy, so in this post I will highlight some points of interest to inspire discussion about conceptions of the gaze and uses of the image.

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