"Vanessa, Montalivet France"

gelatin silver print

signed and dated (pencil) on verso

How I work with my models...We spend time together, know each other, family to family, for years. We are friends. And once in a while we make pictures together... After empathy, I believe that there is no more important aspect of character in a photographic artist than humility. Our best images so often arrive by chance. We are entirely dependent on what is outside us, in the world, for our art. Without a subject, without models, we are nothing and thus, in my own mathematics, I never consider myself more important than the people I photograph. Without them I don't exist. Nope.
(Jock Sturges)

Like many pictures by American photographer Jock Sturges, this photograph was taken on the nude beach of Montalivet on the French Atlantic coast. Sturges does not see his pictures as sensual, erotic or even pornographic; on the contrary, they are primarily intended to depict beauty, innocence, youth and naturalness. 
However, his works have repeatedly been the subject of controversy as they show nudity, particularly of minors. Some critics accuse him of crossing the line between art and exploitation. However, the images have been created legally, his models (and their parents) have actively participated in his projects and are often part of the naturalist communities at the locations where the photographs were taken.
In 1990, Sturges' studio in San Francisco was raided by the FBI over allegations of child pornography and his images and equipment were confiscated. His first book The Last Day of Summer (1991) and the book Radiant Identities (1994) were also classified as child pornography a few years later in 1998. However, none of the accusations could be upheld. Nevertheless, in 2021, Sturges pleaded guilty in a Franklin County (US) court to unnatural and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 16 when he was head of a dormitory at Northfield Mount Hermon School in the mid-1970s. He was sentenced to three years probation.¹
(Christoph Fuchs)

Note

1
Diane Broncaccio, Photographer facing statutory rape charges, Greenfield Recorder, May 12, 2017, (https://www.recorder.com/Photographer-arraigned-on-statuatory-rape-charges-9866341, retrieved Jan. 28, 2025)