The women in photographer Renée Jacobs' world are impenetrable figures in arid, near-lunar landscapes, braving the elements beautifully with utterly transformative poses. But they don't always invite you in for a closer look. If nude photography is divided between models who seem to say fuck me and those who return your greedy leer with a resilient fuck you, it's clear which sentiment Jacobs prefers. "The women I shoot are not from the typical [nude] genre," she says. "They're in charge of their own sexuality, and they blow me away."
Jacobs, winner in the fine art nude category for last year's International Photography Awards (known as the Lucies) is sitting in a shady outdoor patio at a restaurant on Los Angeles' West Third Street. There's a glass of white wine in her hand, a deafening leaf blower behind her, and photos of perfect, naked and unsmiling women sprawled out on a Moroccan tile table, some of which star in a scintillating 2010 calendar, Provocateur:Women ($15.95, available from Amazon). Indeed, the Greek wait staff seems a little overeager to refill her water glass.
Casual fans occasionally assume that Jacobs is a man, given her first name's masculine connotations in French. If they were here, what they'd find instead is a small, lively, 47-year-old woman with an infectious grin and untamed red hair.
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We are sitting together, poring over the types of images that Jacobs once saw as irrelevant art. A former photojournalist who has documented KKK rallies and the remnants of a small Pennsylvania town rendered uninhabitable by an underground mine fire, Jacobs found the discipline of nude photography to be utterly exploitative.
And landscapes? "Leaf and puddle photography. Boring," Jacobs says with a laugh. "Now it's what I do. I was very young and very serious. I had a [photo] book come out when I was 25. Now I'm old and frivolous, and I love it."
The reverse trajectory she recounts is no fabricated narrative. Jacobs didn't come out until she was 30. Following her early photographic career, she attended law school and worked as a civil rights attorney for more than 15 years. Living in Portland, Ore., she first began shooting nudes over a decade ago while still litigating cases. It was simply a creative lark, she says.
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Eventually Jacobs was downsized from her firm. In 1998 settled in L.A.'s Laurel Canyon, once the city's Bohemian epicenter and home to folk songstresses Joni Mitchell and Carole King. There she gave into nude photography as a belated career, shooting and editing on an obsessive, daily basis.
Today Jacobs is in no shortage of models, most of whom find the photographer through the Web, and many of whom have become close friends. "There's a circuit of drive-by models who travel the country, and I've shot a number of them, but I'm really shooting people who are in my life, friends," she says. "It's very flattering when women trust you. I have a lot of women who 'don't do nudes', who don't want the [photographs] posted, and I always honor that."
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The pre-shoot idiosyncrasies often revolve around food. Whether it's a desert landscape in Joshua Tree National Park or a poolside locale in the Hollywood Hills, some models won't eat anything the day of a Jacobs shoot. Some ingest only ice cubes, while others go for Jacobs' homemade bourbon truffles and equally high-caloric fare.
"For one of my best friends, who's also a favorite model, our signature dish is to get French fries and ranch dressing. And then she'll get naked and do cartwheels out in the desert." (Uttering the word favorite is a momentary slip. "Are you trying to get me killed?" she retorts with a laugh when asked to pick some of the more memorable women in the photos before her. "Put it this way: All models are equal. Except some models are more equal.")
In a genre increasingly dominated by amateur "GWCs" (guys with cameras), Jacobs' nudes have an earnest, respectful quality, however titillating they may be. The work isn't about shock or twisted humor-nor is it, as Jacobs once disdained the genre-exploitative. Instead, the images are often weighted down by a genuine melancholy-a partial result of lost opportunities, old dreams unfulfilled. "There's a generational aspect to it, the sadness that a lot of us were not allowed to be fully expressive, we were not allowed to be powerful, we were not allowed to be sexual," she says. "That's probably the biggest reason why I do this. It blows me away that there are creatures like these who are walking the planet. They are just so in command of all of that power, and I think it's fantastic."
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