Is Glamour a Dirty Word? With what is happening to our industry today it seems that "glamour" is slowly becoming a word on its way out in my view. Or at least becoming a title with a meaning less than desirable for someone’s professional credentials. Allow me to elaborate. Part of its “tainting” is due in large part by the very thing everyone has touted as our next big thing, the Web. With its vast amount of "girlie" images involving nudity and those same being tagged as "glamour photos", I'm afraid the word has taken on a totally different connotation due to this dilution, and one less than desirable for the most part it would seem. As we all know, true glamour photography developed in the 1930’s out of a need for gorgeous photographs of the hottest stars in Hollywood for an adoring public to swoon over. And as more and more female stars became famous for their “sex appeal” the stage was set for glamour shooters to rule the roost. With a style of shooting that involved gorgeous lighting, sumptuously sexy wardrobes, and teasing poses, it quickly became its own genre. But it took a gentleman in 1953 with the need to break even more taboos to take it and create a magazine basing a lot of its style on that type of photography, but minus the clothes. Glamour had come to its crossroads. Now speaking in contemporary terms, glamour for its own sake has been relegated to certain personal web-sites, specific lingerie companies, a variety of catalogs, and a following of devotees who simply love the look that is true "glamour". But it seems as far as with anything current, glamour is a word that has been forced to take a backseat to a large degree never to be uttered in trendy circles. It’s as if it has become a sort of 4-letter word. For what was once something that in the past represented the ultimate in sophistication and beauty is now considered to mean "less than what's really hot and trendy". In other words just not edgy enough. A sad commentary. And I feel it's being perpetrated by more than a few misguided art directors with the desire to be considered hip and happening. By hiring photographers who shoot more from the hip and whose minimal everything being the way. Especially since they seem to pigeonhole glamour as just being "too done". Now I'm speaking of those chosen few out there that can dictate what is really current and hip to the rest of the world. They seem gifted of all things "cool" and know exactly what is sexy and hip at any given moment and I must admit they must be an amazing group. Yet I still find it more than amusing how many of us less than hip folk STILL love the look of glamour and glamour lighting. That gorgeous glow of soft, diffused light as it creates a film noir moment on a goddess of beauty (or film star) in front of our lenses. And I do hope we never lose glamour as it really was meant to be. For when it's done well it can be utterly magical. It can cast a spell on every viewer with the simple presence of beautiful light, makeup and wardrobe. All done in such elegance or style as to scream the word glamour at the top of its lungs. And no, you more than likely won't find those sorts of images in some of the more hip magazines of today, due largely to how they seem to derive their attitudes more from being loose and hanging out than cool sophistication. And that I'm afraid is slowly increasing with every new generation. A sort of photographic mutation I guess you might call it. We've become a nation of instant this and that, get it done fast and furious, and don't bother me, I'm eating syndrome. Less is more has become the chant for everything it seems. Which leaves the levels of sophistication needed to be really glamorous, sorely affected. Yes, there's still a few that can pull it off. Truly pull it off. But I believe the days of wine and roses in this industry are quick becoming another in the long list of things considered ancient history. With glamour, as it concerns true beauty photography falling somewhere in there with the fall of the Roman Empire. DJM Previous / Expose U Index / Next Read more about David at www.davidmecey.com Read more about David's FotoFantasy Camp

All Photos by David Mecey