StevenClark.com.au

A great way to buy real Australian wine directly from real Australian small batch wine makers is through a start-up called Naked Wines. Over 49,000 people are currently crowd-funding Australian wines through Naked Wines at a commitment of $40 per month. These small scale wine buff investors are called the Angels.

The business problem Naked Wines solve is that the Australian wine industry is dominated by the two major supermarkets – Coles and Woolworth. With 77 per cent of the wine industry in those large corporate hands it is extremely difficult for small producers to compete and new entrants to produce good, authentic Australian wine. Real wine. Wine made by real wine makers in small batches.

The idea itself is simple enough: wine lovers (the Angels) commit to letting Naked Wines pull $40 each month from their bank accounts. This money accumulates in their shopping cart to be immediately available for purchasing wine. This money isn’t lost or stolen; it remains their money. The guaranteed $40 monthly cash flow from the 49,000+ Angels is used to help a select group of small wine makers purchase grapes and bring their otherwise unrealised small batch wines to market. Note that only Angels can purchase these limited edition wines.

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Santa brought me a special gift this year in the form of Tokyo Lucky Hole by Nobuyoshi Araki and published by TASCHEN. If you don’t know anything about Araki then I’ll find it difficult to begin: Araki is a leading figure in Japanese erotic, bondage, pornography and art photography. His obsession for pushing the limits, the trademark round dark glasses and a boundless energy for sexual exploration have made him possibly the most recognisable face in the erotic genre. This book, created between 1983-1985, offers the reader over 800 photographs created behind the doors of Tokyo’s vibrant sex industry.

Araki was joined on these forays by Akira Suei, editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine Photo Age. The magazine featured mainly Araki’s work and pushed the boundaries of what was allowed in a Japanese publication of the era. When pubic hairs were made illegal in photographs they pushed back by shaving the models’ pussies. When their pussies were required to be covered in ink, Araki and Suei had the pubic hair manually inked onto the photographs. When underwear was required by law, the tactic was to use transparent material.

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In recent years my photographic interest has been focused around the genres of nudity, eroticism, vintage fetish, kink and Japanese bondage. I’m particularly interested in the Twentieth Century after World War 2 and before 1990. The time when film still reigned as Queen of the photographic medium.

Photographers in the vein of Irving Klaw, Araki, Bob Mizer, Jim French, Harrison Marks of The Kamera Club, Larry Clark and Peter Berlin. Japanese bondage magazines like The Kitan Club, Uramado and SM King. And more acceptable names like Jan Saudek, André de Dienes, Peter Basch, Duane Michals, Christian Coigny, George Dureau, Steven Meisel, Bruce Weber and Kishin Shinoyama.

The number of influences around and between those image makers are astounding. People who challenged societal norms; creators who presented their ideas in magazines and fashion; social deviants who broke rules and lost an occasional legal battle along the way. It’s only when you visit the continuum of photographers over that time period to see who were the influencers and the influenced that it becomes a cohesive story.

Even today nudity makes half of society baulk. So when people are confronted by Araki’s picture of a snail on the head of an erect penis, for example, it can be a challenging photograph. Or a profound photograph. Because what we bring to the picture in the way of culture and expectation has a tendency to overwhelm our desire for voyeurism and can even provoke complete and pure revulsion.

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