I don’t post things that arouse me. I post things that give me hope.

Hope that the pendulum is swinging away from awful Maxim, Playboy, or Cosmo photography; away from ham-fisted airbrushing and impossibly saturated colors.

I covet idiosyncratic beauty, creativity, inventiveness. I’m tired of average people compiled into portraits that ape beauty like Frankenstein’s monster aped life. Beauty is a manic arms race. Just give me an average person photographed well. As cliché as it is, a talented photographer is one who can make any subject captivating. No one is as good at Photoshop as they think they are.

I don’t think I’m alone in my thoughts, either. Polaroids are hip. Polaroids are forgiving in their blurriness and muted colors. Polaroids can’t be post-processed. Same goes for the older 35mm point-and-shoot cameras currently enjoying a resurgence thanks to photographers like Terry Richardson. They’re all shortcuts to authenticity because they remind us of when we were younger and less jaded. They emphasize the moment captured, flaws and all. Flaws especially, perhaps.

Nudity itself gives me hope. Not porno nudity, not assembly line nudity. Average nudity, playful nudity, or at least honest nudity. I seek out nakedness that makes me think we might eventually shed the last of the puritan bullshit (guilt, shame) that taints our culture.