photographer for more than 40 years, I have concentrated on photographing the female figure, often outdoors in natural settings, since 2002.  I believe that artists discover, rather than choose, their subject matter.  For me, women, and specifically the female figure, are the subjects that have repeatedly drawn my attention throughout my years as a photographer.

I photograph the female figure for many reasons.  I believe the female body is the original aesthetic object, the source of all our ideas of what is beautiful. Therefore, the female figure provides the perfect subject matter, just as it has been an important subject since the beginnings of art.

I choose to work primarily in color rather than black and white because color is more challenging.  I’m interested in the abstraction of objective reality…finding the truth of abstraction in the things we see (but don’t see) every day.  Black and white is too abstract by its nature to be truly useful in this work.  And, besides, the world I see is in color.  However, I’m not religious about only showing my work in color.  Black and white is also a beautiful medium.  I worked primarily in black and white for much of my earlier time as a photographer, so it is far from an alien medium to me.

While I don’t focus on the erotic in my work, I also do not shun it.  The idea that a photograph of a nude woman could be without any erotic content seems absurd to me.  In some of my photographs I like to allow the model to express her own unique personality.  My best photo shoots are with creative models who contribute their own ideas to the work, leading to a creation that goes beyond what any one artist could produce.  I’ve been privileged to work with many wonderful models who often work much harder to create these images than I do.

In recent years I’ve worked a great deal outside the studio, exploring the relationship of the figure to the natural environment.  The nude figure seems to me to inherently belong in scenes of natural beauty.  In my photos I seek to integrate and show the interaction of light and shadow, form and patterns and color. 

My work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe.  Collectors there and in South America own my prints.  I am regularly published inEurope, including many times in French PHOTO magazine.  My work is in the permanent collection of the Kinsey Institute, was included in the Erotic Signature books and international traveling exhibits in 2008 and 2009 and has been shown in a several venues in Ohio, Vermont, Florida, Los Angeles, Seattle and in the Detroit area over the past several years.  My work was included in four books f-eleven published and in the f-eleven exhibit at Gallery Provocateur.

I am one of the named plaintiffs in "Free Speech Coalition et al v. Holder" which has been filed in federal court in Philadelphia. This lawsuit is aimed at having the law known commonly as “2257” and “2257A” declared unconstitutional.  That lawsuit was filed in 2009 and is just coming to trial as this exhibit is being prepared.  The trial is scheduled for June 2013 in Philadelphia.   In recognition of my active participation in that lawsuit to defend the right of free expression for photographers, Carrie Leigh’s NUDE magazine awarded me their first annual “Arts for Humanity” award for 2009. 

http://davelevingston.com/