fotoEros Box Set

fotoEros is a fine art photography project celebrating sensual and aesthetic nudes. These artworks are intended for a mature, educated audience with an emphasis on quality over quantity.

This is the project’s flagship collection. The images in the deluxe oversized portfolio album are not found in other books.

Hardcover photobook

fotoEros demi-folio

• Premium hardcover photo album
• 20 bondage-inspired art images
• Super heavy 190 gsm Mohawk ProLine Pearl photo paper
• 8×10 inches/20×25 cm
• Autographed by the artist
• No detail is spared: durable library binding, heavyweight end sheets, linen hardcover, and full-wrap glossy photo dust-jacket with end flaps.

Deluxe oversize portfolio album

• Premium hardcover photo album
• 26 photographs
• 13×11 in, 33×28 cm
• Limited to 20 copies
• Signed/numbered
• Black linen hardcover with laminated dust jacket
• Durable library binding
• Super heavy 190 gsm Mohawk ProLine Pearl photo paper
• Heavyweight end sheets

This collection is stirring and occasionally too provocative for the mainstream. The sequence of images begins with a spirited disposition becoming progressively more intense throughout the series.

Not just a collection of beautiful body parts, the subjects are confident and unashamed. Every image has been photographed and painstakingly prepared and more than two dozen subjects are included.

The photobook has an artist’s introductory essay explaining how’s and why’s of portraying sensuality through photography. The collection begins with moderate content and becomes progressively more provocative, with the boldest images at the end of the book.

Artist Aaron Knight is fascinated by the countless ways expressions of the body can be unapologetically hedonic, yet represent formal beauty. The contours and textures of muscles, limbs, and features work in concert to create compositions. Each image of this project pays tribute to the spirit of passion through arrangement of shadows, sweeping lines, and texture.

Photographers can choose from various apparatus to bring illusions to life: modified lighting, lenses that alter perspective, and a plethora of software. Knight doesn’t approach his craft as an operator of equipment. He is trained in painting, drawing, and photography. His ideas are independent from the medium. The tools of photography are the best means to the end of realizing what he seeks to produce.

Knight didn’t invent this scintillating beauty, nor does he merely document what is in front of the camera; he pays homage through an extensive production process. He draws upon traditions of pin-up art, reimagining the classic nude study through the eyes of an oil painter and with a twist of theatrical performance. This compilation owes as much to the viewer’s imagination as it does to alluring subjects and the effort of crafting of the photographs. The central approach of this presentation is to conceal or eliminate elements that are irrelevant and distract from my message. Shadow, point of view, and framing all complement the poses and expressions of the subjects.

The subjects are confident and unashamed, and their body language indicates trust in the viewer. Despite a direct seductive message, these images are deliberate both in their design and detail. The most successful photographs will be the ones that convey new information each time they are viewed, rather than relying on initial impact.

For the majority of these pages, Aaron Knight employs tonal modification that resembles the traditional black and white photography he was trained in. Despite their monochromatic appearance, this effect contains hints of color. Bluish shadows contrast with warm mid-tones and amber highlights. The subtle toning is deliberately applied to specific areas of each image to achieve the desired effect. The lack of color is an attempt to direct attention to the graphic aspects of composition: convergence of line, repetition of shape, and contrasts of texture.

This collection is organized into visual themes, including nature, the studio, and some full color images. Although each sequence is titled, they are presented without written interruption. These sub-themes are like portions of a river; where one ends and the next begins is approximate.

In the studio, one of the broad themes included, the centrality of the figure is emphasized by the untextured surroundings. The ambience is primarily established through a sense of space: the relationship of the torso and limbs to the rectangular frame of the photograph. A closely-cropped depiction feels familiar while a more distant subject insinuates a level of voyeurism.

When the nude is photographed in a landscape setting, another broad theme incorporated, there is an allusion to our basic animal inclinations. The context of the wilderness contrasts with the body, but also implies the human form has its origins in nature. This is where this compilation begins.