Recently I did an interview with the erotic photographer Frederic levar, who started his career when he met his Muse. A woman that combines strength and vulnerability in one person, she provokes, seduces and gave him the opportunity to explore new erotic worlds.
You do not consider your work to be pornographic, although your images are quite explicit. What’s the deference between your work, erotic art and porn in your opinion?
“Porn is the product of an entertainment-industry aimed to generate money. I think integrity is a keyword in this always returning question. The integrity of the meanings of model and photographer. Explicitness is not the sole attribute of porn. Explicitness can serve many purposes, Quite frankly I don’t even think my work is so explicit.”
Your work is rather direct, the viewer gets the impression he’s actually looking at an SM party taking place, I often felt quite voyeuristic looking at your images, I must admit.
“I regard this as a compliment. If it makes you feel voyeuristic, this means that the pictures are touching you and are making you question if you want to see this and by that acknowledge for yourself what you feel about it.”
Can you tell me some more about your working process, is it indeed a spontaneous shoot or are things put in scene by yourself?
“Yes, they are spontaneous sessions, where I choose and create the circumstances as a start and within these limits let things happen. My model plays the leading role in this. I register and react.”
How does your model, your muse, feel about being photographed in such an intimate way?
“I have asked her to answer this question, she says “With him as a photographer I feel completely at ease to be photographed in this intimate way. The reason I suppose is at first that he is very close to my ideas, my fantasies. Like the photos give you a voyeuristic tendency, with me Frederic lets me play with my exhibitionistic tendencies. The leading part in these photos is not by the photographer but by me almost directing his camera. My complete trust in him lets me surpass what is accepted for a woman to fantasize about or to do.”
There is a big difference between your formal nudes and your fetish scenes. Do both approaches exist aside each other? or did one evolved from the other?
“They exist aside each other. And actually, what you call formal nudes? I don’t know; for us they have the same intensity; they are charged as much as the fetish scenes.”
Is the world of fetish something you are photographing from outside, or are you part of this scene yourself?
“I don’t want to be part of any scene. It is not a question of in or outside.”
Finally, I would like you to have a look at the work of Anna & Barney and share your thoughts. In my opinion your work shows many similarities.
“I like their work very much, but I feel it is much more staged, planned then mine. They are recreating the images they have in their heads; the concepts, the scripts. That is actually something I try to get rid of after my film directing. Especially the advertising work was all about that. Very little room for improvisation, for the beauty of coincidence. I believe that by our way of improvisation, by letting things happen, by allowing oneself to get involved in it; you get closer to what the reality at that specific moment will tell you.”
