Ignore the source, but this came up in a critique thread actually and got me wondering..

What is the purpose of the glamour shot?

Not just the difference between glamour/fashion/artistic (focusing on the model/the product/or the photographer).. But specifically, what glamour photographers goals are in producing pictures..

Fashion folks tend to turn up their nose..  The "artistic" types tend to snort.. And yet, glamour is probably the most popularly viewed images out there..

And to back that up there seems to be very specific rules for what does and what doesn't work (or push the line into porn/smut).. 

So, opinions?  Insight?  You guys are both the underdogs AND the masses..

What is it you're trying to do or say?  What compels you to keep doing it? (That may be the dumbest question ever asked, but...)  And so on..

The purpose of a glamour shot is to sell sex.  To profit off of lust. This can be done well or it can be done trashy, but in the end, the point of the picture is to the capture sensuality and sexiness of the model.  The model should be the focal point of the picture.

A lot of fashion folks tend to turn their noses up at everybody so I don't take offense to it.  I do find it strange that some artsy farsty folks seem to think that desaturating a shadowy image of the naked body somehow puts them "above"  glamour photographers.  But meh, they don't pay my bills.

I shoot more than just glamour.  I shoot landscape, lifestyle, macro and still life as well.  But glamour rakes in the bulk of my income.  Thing about it is, that no matter WHAT I'm shooting, the point of my photos (in my mind) is to make a shot that makes you say "Damn that's a nice shot".  No more, no less.

I think that the "problem" with glamour is that the concept was born in more innocent times (sort of) before Virginia Slim ads, the pill and women's lib. Since I live in Canada I cringe at some of the shots here. I left MM many months ago because I got very critical and nasty. I have returned with the idea of having fun and perhaps sharing some of what I know before I kick the bucket. But living in Canada is the real problem when I look at some of the pictures here. I wish more female photographers, female models and MUAs were more vocal about all this and put in their contributions.

At one time one would have been embarrased at reading a Playboy in a bus. Now young men read Maxim in buses with no problem. What has changed?

I teach at a local photo school and I once (yes once) bought a Maxim to show my class what our course (the Nude Portrait) was not. Many of my students (Canadian) were appalled  at the Maxim shots.

We now (thank God) see women as more that what the original glamour image was all about. We might look back at Peter Gowland's pictures with some innocence and wonder why those times will not come back. They will not.

Another thing about MM is that there is a wide spectrum of photographers and models and MUAs who come from different parts of the US. There are parts that have liberal views on female nudity and others that are more conservative.

My doubt is in what glamour has become. Hurrell, as far as I know never photographed a movie star with fruit, cars or motorcycles. Suddenly posing women by these vehicles is glamour.

While there have always been "French Postcards" before the internet it was difficult to look and find porno. It involved going to stores with the hopes that nobody we knew saw us there. The ante is up by many notches with internet porno so glamour has suffered a transformation and I think that many  don't know in what direction to go. We are living a transition which at the same time is made worse by the transition from film to digital. The problem of taking nude film to be developed (I am sure there are some here who might remember that!) is no longer a problem.
Alexwh

This is interesting.. The reason I wonder about this is so many people swear fashion is different from glamour is different from porn and so on..  And yet, I can't quite figure out where the line is and what makes one acceptable and one not.

I think it's more or less fair to say that model photography exists because people draw the eye.  It's usually a safe bet that pretty models or models posed to accentuate pretty features capture that many more eyes..  So they have drawing power..  There is no denying there is a sexual nature to this, but...

What I wonder about is the double and triple and layer upon layer of standards that crop up around this.  We're a voyeuristic race.. We like to look.  The standards of civilization say oggling isn't really ok (although a lot do it anyway).. And images get their appeal because the accentuate what we like to see and not only are we allowed, we are ENCOURAGED to look..

Now fashion and commercial modeling take that desire to look at the things we are attracted to (at least in the realm of model photographer) and divert that to a desire for whatever product is being sold (the ultimate bait and switch)..  And this, by moral standards I don't get is completely above board and ok..

Art (in reference to model photography) tends to focus on the details in a way that's designed to bring something else across (sometimes along with, sometimes instead of the regular voyeuristic attraction.  Or (as some have pointed out) it's bewbs in black and white.

Glamour is a gray area I'm trying to understand..  It's NOT porn (proclaim the shooters)..  And yet it IS about sexualizing the model for the sole sake of, well, sexualizing the model..  It's the photographic equivalent of foreplay.. And some talk this up, and some talk it down..

Then there's porn..  Which is what it is, tends to make no appologies, and tends to cause the most out and out controversy even though it's probably the most honest of the all the forms..

I'm not knocking.. I don't really have much of an opinion on what's better or what's worse.. Or why if something fits partially in one group it can or can't fit into another and so on..  I'm just wondering why everyone else does..

For example..  Why is a model who walks a runway or hawks an item with her appearance supposedly better than a T&A girl?  Why is a T&A girl better than someone involved in pornography.

Why is it ok to look at one, but not the other?

I know the general idea.. But we've got enough people here (both models and photogs) who champion one particular area or more, that we could get a lot of insight from all sides of the question..

WG Rowland you write: For example..  Why is a model who walks a runway or hawks an item with her appearance supposedly better than a T&A girl?  Why is a T&A girl better than someone involved in pornography.

Runway models specially the very expensive ones from Brazil, Russia, etc live a hyper fast existence in which they must change costumes in seconds. We  (or some) are attracted to this idea of fast-fast particularly when we are told that these models are naughty and or are high on drugs. We are both attraced and repelled. A fantasy for many photographers here would be to take the "privileged" view of this by snapping backstage during one of these runway extravaganzas. We are attracted by the way they walk (do they mimic big African cats?). You can see their bare breasts many times but nobody in that business would say "tits and ass."

The words conjure the image and it is this image that we say is better or worse depending on what we compare it to.

But this image of pornography is changing, too, as more and more European actresses and actors have appeared in movies performing the sex act for real. The ante is going up and up and that is why we are so confused.
Alexwh

Fashion: You sell cloths, accessories.
Artistic: You express an idea
Commercial: Sell a product or service

Glamour.... you sell a person (her/his image).
Glamour is model centered and the model is the subject of the picture.

Why is it popular? lust. On both side. Public love to watch beautiful bodies. Beautiful bodies love to be looked at.

Glamor....is defined by era......my idea of glamor was the old Hollywood Glamour of Hurrell.....the stars were perfect....not a hair out of place.....everything was sophisticated.......now that was Glamour!

Today...we have Glamor......but it's not glamor as much as it's plain sex.....nothing wrong with it.....but I don't think of it as glamour.......they are sexy photos of very attractive women with obvious endowments in poses meant to elicite a particular physical response.....and it's used to sell anything from flapjacks to airliners.....

Then we have the underside of glamor....porn.....it's seamy, tawdry, dirty and it rakes in millions upon millions of dollars every year......

Glamor/glamour like beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.....