Another Richard Murrian series on Graceful Nudes and a dissatisfied David. I rarely am satisfied when adding M-U-S-E galleries, and I have a pretty good idea why.
Let's start with the paragraph on this gallery page(I didn't write it, they did):
"INDOCHINE: Introducing Valaria, our newest exclusive eighteen year old Muse. Half-Vietnamese, half-Czech, her young exotic beauty resonates in this gorgeous new series.
Photographed nude for the first time." - M-U-S-E
I have many objections, first the eighteen year old part makes it sound like teen porn or a way of satisfying a pornographic fantasy of some viewers. What's so special about being eighteen? I am eighteen and it's one of the last things I say about myself while introducing myself. It sounds to me like some line used to promote this gallery.
After that awkward paragraph they then mention that it's her first nude photographs ever. O.K. we all may mention that it's the model's first time if she looks nervous as a way to excuse any nervousness that may appear in the gallery, but its position here is pointless as she apparently is pretty comfortable with her nudity. Another promotional line.
After that introductory paragraph the first thing that you're likely to notice if you have seen the previous M-U-S-E galleries featured here is that this gallery is very similar to them(Michaela and Jana come to mind). This "templating" is a sign of the loss of one's creativity, a photographer without creativity is making porn, not erotica or tasteful nudes. The subject becomes the female body, and add all that artificial erotica(not that obvious in this gallery) and you've got a new gallery to make some money. This shouldn't be the way artists think; some very successful artists died in debt. Of course I am not saying that Richard Murrian should start roaming the streets with a camera, some posters, and an empty cup. What I am saying is that personal satisfaction and creative work is the pride of a true artist, and from where I stand this is not where M-U-S-E is heading. Mr. Murrian has a great skill, he just needs to listen to his inner mind for a while and to capture the beauty of his models instead of trying to capture something that's not there(sexuality represented as erotica).
The models are beautiful and brave, this is something that every photographer should respect. Don't make her another face in the crowd, show her for what she really is, make her beauty shine and make her stand out, believe me, this is much better than listening to any marketing teams and probably will make money if you wait for a while or market it to the right people. Aiming for the lowest common denominator means that you will show what nudity was never meant to offer.
I am not a fan of erotica, but if you want to do it right, then do it when the model is feeling sexy. You can't tell a beautiful model to put her finger on her lips and to spread her legs, take a picture of her and call it art. That's not art, that's abject pornography.
Anyway, this gallery is to honor Valaria and her beauty. Enjoy!
There are a lot of things that I hate about Richard Murrian's website, the most apparent of them being the very erotic display of most of his new sets, which only serves to fulfill the demands of his visitors without caring about the models or the fact that the emotions displayed in those sets are fake ones. I don't seem to understand why a female putting a finger in her mouth and acting like she's a model in a heavily sexual perfume commercial is found attractive by some visitors, I have rarely seen a woman acting in that way in real life and I certainly don't like that kind of emotions.
My current definition of art is that it's a display of the familiar in a beautiful not-so-familiar way; id est showing the beauty of the nude human body that our brain is used to discarding in real life. Apparently, erotica isn't a familiar subject in real life, and that makes it a tasteless form of art, for it doesn't express a point of view or conform to my current definition. That's enough to make me lose some of my respect for an artist, as succumbing to monetary pressure is a weakness.
However, as with many other artists he manages to produce a good set once in a while, and this collection of images seems to represent one of them. It has those obnoxious erotic elements in a couple of pictures, but it's not a bad set once you get past that.
It's an aesthetically satisfactory set to an extent, but it definitely doesn't compete with the artistic images that are found elsewhere. I won't buy a membership there anytime soon, and I don't recommend buying one unless you love fake erotica or have enough patience to hunt for treasures(which are there once you look close enough, but aren't that common).
I just hope that you'll be able to find some beauty in this set.
"Don't be afraid of showing vaginae, they don't bite", this is another statement that was recently made by a friend of mine. Well, in my case it's not that I have a kind of pudendophobia, I have my own reasons for trying to stay away from pictures that do give a prominent display for that part of the body. I may be repeating myself, but this time I will try to correlate my personal beliefs and ideas to the reason behind that behavior when i choose images.
It's not that vaginae or penises are ugly, when I see a vagina or a penis I don't normally feel any sense of excitation or any inspiration. I often inspect the anatomical structure of the sexual organs and name each structure then move on. I have read some books about human anatomy and I am very comfortable with seeing those parts of the body. This makes the process of seeing pure images of those parts of the body an inane one; I am not seeking sexual gratification in those images and I don't expect my users to be expecting that kind of thing, it's simply against my philosophy.
Most of the pay-sites(I do promote some of the tasteful nudes from those websites) and the other websites that are similar to Graceful Nudes have a lot of images that mainly concentrate on those parts of the body, those websites are trying to increase their bottom line, regardless of how they achieve it.
I have repeated this many times, but when I look at any image what I see is the beauty or the lack thereof; this means that the aesthetical appeal of the images is one of the factors that I highly value now. As Graceful Nudes is somewhat of a personal website that represents my vision and the types of nudes that I normally will gladly see, these personal beliefs do affect my image choice.
The main problem with most of these images is that they are not beautiful, inspiring, or even subjective. They mainly transform the model into a commodity who's being exploited to make more money. I don't see how a close-up image of a vagina of a penis can represent an idea(looky looky, here's a vagina *giggle*?) or depict the wholesome nature and the sense of freedom that nudity represents. Those images are mostly devoid of artistic meanings and mostly are a part of a tasteless picture gallery, they are the kind of images that are made to meet a deadline, and deadlines kill the creativity of the best of artists.
It's not pudendophobia that control my actions, it's not wanting to contribute to any objectification of the models. I personally prefer tasteful nudes, and those are the nudes that I am willing to share. Once a nude woman becomes more beautiful and less sexual than a clothed woman, you will be able to experience the true beauty of those nudes that I am presenting here. Hopefully some of you do like those nudes.
I hope that you will enjoy the beauty of this gallery of Jana by Richard Murrian.
Richard Murrian's style is marked with his ability to mix erotica with art. His works are often beautiful and inspiring. With his remarkable talent, and his beautiful models he has earned his reputation of being one of the best photographers online.
It's hard for a lot of photographers to be able to have the ability to mix elements of erotica and art together; I have seen a lot of strange works by various photographers who try to achieve this result but failed. Richard Murrian has become one of the most popular photographers online because he has a good ability of using the light to show the beauty of his models and because he has worked with various beautiful models. I do regret seeing his talent being used to produce more erotica these days than ever before, but it may be that he prefers this genre of photography or is unable to come up with a lot of innovative artistic galleries without including the sexual elements that are offered by erotica, it's really hard to tell.
His career started when he married his wife Nancy Murrian who soon became his first model, he honed his skills and then started producing galleries that were somewhat more artistic. After he started gaining popularity he started M-U-S-E which was only featuring his works and the works of his wife until recently. The models that he has worked with include Monika C, Nella, and Yanna(her modelling career started in his studio). His works have been featured at various websites including Met-Art, BodyInMind, and of course M-U-S-E.
In this set his style can be easily seen, he often uses shades of black and a soft background, this helps to shift the focus on the models beauty. The models always look good in his exquisite settings.
This lengthy praise of Richard Murrian's talent didn't make me forget the role of Monika C, the model contributes a great deal into the creation of a gallery. It's her willingness to share her beauty and her values that are reflected in the gallery that makes it beautiful.
In this gallery Monika looks tired, but this hasn't affected the quality of the gallery. She is looking as charming as ever. The look in her eyes was rather mysterious, it showed a great deal of self-confidence and a sense of dignified beauty, and as Dwayne Bell of BodyInMind has said in one of his articles, self-confidence is one of the critical inner beauty values that a woman exhibits. It shows her respect for her beauty and demands a similar respect from the viewer, those simple inner beauty values are the things that differentiate between a highly inspiring gallery and a base erotic one. Those values are often reflected on a woman's face and her posture; that's why I always include as many face-shots as possible. Those shots offer us a glimpse of a woman's soul and are essential in completing the wonderful experience that one gets from viewing every graceful picture.
I hope that you will enjoy this beautiful gallery of Monika C from Met-Art.
This series features some body-painting, and even though it's quite different from what I normally present I have decided to choose it to break the monotone that is starting to develop here. I understand that you may want to see more explicit content, but I am mainly trying to show you the graceful nudes that will make you realize and appreciate the fact that nudity is one of mankind's gifts. This isn't a very easy task.
Anyway, I didn't find this gallery to be of a bad quality. I trust Richard Murrian's ability of producing beautiful images, of course that's when he doesn't want to produce erotic images to boost the sales of his website. I like the lighting that he has used and he was able to show Adriana's magnificence, and that was enough for me.
I hope that you will enjoy this beautiful gallery of Adriana from MUSE.
I believe I am not the only one who adores Murrian's works, and it's not a surprising thing, especially when one considers the quality of his works and his masterful mélange of lights and shadows that produce the most delightful of exquisite photographs.
It's unfair to underestimate the role of the model in igniting the imagination of the photographer. I believe that some models bring out the best of the photographer by challenging the photographer's creativity; through her aura of inspiration she can magically affect the photographer. The truly beautiful galleries always have two artists, the model and the photographer, who collaborate to present the genuine beauty to the world.
What can further corroborate what I have just said is the description of this gallery, which was provided by M-U-S-E:
"A world renown photographer meets the "Model of his Dreams" and thus begins a new beautiful collaboration... In this soft and delicate set, Richard introduces an angelic beauty, Alla. This is their very first photo series together, shot recently on location in Kiev."
You can see the emphasis on the role of Alla in the production of this gallery, far from being a docile model, she makes this gallery special even though it's shot in a mundane kitchen, a theme that's often used by the photographers. Her presence however makes everything around her melt as if space and time are bending around her.
I hope that you will like this truly exquisite gallery from M-U-S-E.
Enjoy!
I believe that the regular visitors of Graceful Nudes know my deep passion for Murrian's work. However, I rarely search for the biographies of the photographers, I did search few minutes ago trying to know the country of Nancy Murrian(She's his wife, I believe that I have read somewhere that she comes from Argentina, I can't seem to find that piece of information right now). I was amazed to learn that he started his photography career around the year 2000 after being in the rock music industry for quite a while, this means that he has an emerging talent. Yes, all of these beautiful images are the works of a very talented young photographer who's far from being a veteran.
He lives in Paris (Most of the artists come to Europe, probably because there's an open attitude towards nudity in most European countries) with his wife Nancy, who was his first model. I can't find out when they first got married but I have just read that his first time to ever shoot a nude woman was shooting Nancy(she was his girlfriend back then) in 1998, it seems that she has greatly affected his style of photography.
Nancy is a photographer herself as well, you can see her works at Met-Art and M-U-S-E. I personally prefer Richard's dreamy style to the sharp style of Nancy. They both are good photographers though.
Here's the description of this gallery from M-U-S-E:
"Previews of Richard's newest book, his long-awaited homage to his beautiful wife Nancy. The most intimate, most erotic, most personal images he's ever published." - M-U-S-E
I didn't mention that these images are also included in one of his books, you can find a link to his publisher on his main page.
I hope that you will like this M-U-S-E gallery.
Enjoy!
We will start with the description by Richard Murrian:
"A mixture of the first two sets by Nancy Murrian of her newest model, internet sensation JENNI. Highly artistic studio nudes demonstrate Nancy's skill behind the camera, and a sexy bath scene which shows off Jenni's powerful sensuality."
I have always felt that Nancy's works are more explicit than those of her husband. She had a tendency to concentrate on certain body parts of the model and this is one of the reasons I don't really find her works that special, but, with this gallery I am starting to see her true photography skills and she seems to be a good photographer.
Jenni is the same Jenni from FEMJOY and the same Jenni A from Met-Art. She is also building a website of her own right now, and if her website provides good images then I will certainly feature some galleries from there. Anyway, what makes Jenni special is her angelic beauty. I have seen other sets of her which can be regarded truly disrespectful, depicting her as a sexual monster(which is also a sign of disrespect for female sexuality). When I see sets like that I just realize how good the photographers I feature here are.
I hope that you will like this M-U-S-E gallery.
Enjoy!
"Once upon a time in 2003, she was a very shy and innocent fashion model, coming to Richard Murrian's studio for her very first topless photos... nervous, uncertain... 3 years later she'd become one of the hottest erotic models on the internet, confident, and her real excitement always apparent. Come see this special series, artistic, passionate, and erotic, full of masterful light and powerful seduction." - Richard Murrian
Jana, Yanna, and Yana. They're all the same name with different spelling.
Richard Murrian's works are of a quite impressive quality. He apparently takes the plan for his shoots and to set everything up instead of just getting his camera and starting to take pictures once the model has entered his studio, this is something I really appreciate about M-U-S-E, Every image is a masterpiece and every gallery has an incredible ability of inspiring you.
I hope that you will like this M-U-S-E gallery.
Enjoy!
Richard Murrian, I thing his name can be used as an adjective to describe quality galleries. His style and the respectful way with which he captures his models and the moment at which he took the image. It's not a matter of quantity at all; you can see that every image has a unique pose and a different meaning attributed to it.
I hope that you will live this inspiring M-U-S-E gallery.
Enjoy!
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