My name is Ed Francis, and I am a career student and photographer residing in SE Michigan.  As a photographer my focus is on female figure studies and portraiture or to put it less pretentiously, I do nudes.

I’m a relative newcomer to the realm of photography, having less than five years experience at it, mostly self-taught.  However, I am receiving formal instruction at Washtenaw Community College (hence the “career student” part).  The female nude has been an integral part of most of my work since the beginning – I’ve held a fascination for nudes dating back to when I was a teenager living in Europe and saw for the first time the graceful, sinuous forms of Rodin’s sculptures.  The way they seemed to come to life entranced me as much, if not more so than their physical beauty.  Indeed I sometimes think the main reason why I’m into figure photography is that I’m far too clumsy and impatient to be a sculptor.

In my eyes, the nude is more than just a form to be studied.  Rather it is character, a living story revealing itself through pose, personality and expression.  Perhaps it is the writer in me (I also write short stories and poetry, and completed my first novel a couple of years ago) but when composing an image my goal is to get the model to tell me a story.  It could be a tale of romance or one of mystery, of triumph or tragedy.  Sometimes the stories are straightforward; sometimes they include contradictory elements, for example the mixing of sensuality with violence.  But in all of these images I hope to challenge the viewer as reader as well as observer, to enable them to unravel the mystery that is a good tale. 

Now if I can come up with some good titles…

Enjoy!

--Ed Francis