Jock Sturges (/ˈstɜːrdʒɪs/; born 1947) is an American photographer, best known for his images of nude adolescents and their families.
I'd rather get back to making art than talk about it.
I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body. Now, I recognize that there are certain postures and angles that make people see red, which are evidence of original sin or something, and I avoid that.
I don't photograph any two people who are remotely the same.
Any artist that's involved in their work is inevitably going to have a focus in what they do.
What I'm good at is making art.
Some of the people that I photographed as sticks became much more voluptuous, much rounder, in some cases dramatically so, and I think they're even more beautiful.
Before, I'd photograph anything. I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body.
But the truth is that Homo sapiens is a sensual species. I think all species are, to one degree or another.
I use an 8 x 10 view camera. All other cameras are just toys.
We live in an age where anonymity is growing in magnitude like a bomb going off.
There's no particular evidence that any of the lower mammals or any of the other animals have any interest in aesthetics at all. But Homo sapiens does, always has and always will.
The images I like best are parts of series that I've started, in some cases, with the pregnancies of the mothers of the children in question, and I continue that series right on through the birth of children to the child that resulted from that first pregnancy.
In fact, I don’t believe I’m guilty of any crimes, but I’ve always been drawn to and fascinated by physical, sexual, and psychological change, and there’s an erotic aspect to that.
If it gets to the Supreme Court, I'll have the directors of every museum in the country as expert testimony that my work is legitimate art.
I'll go to do a shoot, I'll spend five or six hours at the beach with people, and when people think I'm all out of film, then they really relax and I get my good pictures.
I'm the last person who has any desire to instruct anybody in shame. That's no errand for me.
It's no small irony that the government inevitably and invariably ends up promoting precisely that which they would most like to repress.
I am fascinated by the human body and all its evolutions.
The world is shrinking as we see more and more of it in the media, and the more we see of the world, the smaller we are, the more aware we are of how insignificant any one of us is.
That's my ambition: that you look at the pictures and realize what complex, fascinating, interesting people every single one of my subjects is.