To tell the truth, when I saw this picture at the first time, I will think it is just a random picture in a pornographic website if I didn’t saw the trademark of American Apparel. In fact, I really can’t feel any sense of beauty from this picture. I just think it’s very vulgar and meaningless and I can’t imagine what such a picture is propagating.

I try to understand the meaning behind this picture that American Apparel used it as an advertisement. I think it probably means that the girls who wear their clothes are very sexy, proactive and confident, and they will send out a very woman’s breath that maybe will make them more welcomed by more men? The surrounding of the photographing environment is a common room that we can see in ordinary family. Does it mean that the girls who wear their clothes can be more easier and convenient to be sexy and beautiful at home? I think, if the picture wants to express these information, it is a very good starting point. But the problem is that the form of this picture is terrible, which can not be accepted by most of the people. Also, It is very easy to cause misunderstanding and bring people a sense of discomfort.

Tom Ford for Men fragrance shot by Terry Richardson,2007

There are a lot of sexy advertisements and also there are variety of forms to express sexy. I think the 2007 advertisement campaign from Tom Ford shot by the ‘artful deviant’Terry Richardson is a good example. Although it is very explicit, but because the photographer made a smart choice to enlarge the part of the body, combined with the senior post-processing, the picture is revealed a senior sexy breath. It reached the ultimate sexy theme and also successfully obtained people’s attention. It focuses on women’s crazy pursuit and love to men’s perfume, and a component containing some sexual hints. But the advertisement is to make the woman crazy, but the true audience of the advertisement is the male. So it was actually used the woman’s crazy attitude to stimulate the men’s desire to buy and make them crazy.

A France photographer who called Marc Riboud had said that ‘After all we are no machines, even though we work from behind a machine. We think before taking a photo, we think while taking it, and we have to think about it afterwards. ‘ I think this sentence is well worth remembering. And I think that everytime when we take photos, it’s very important to think deeply according to the audience of the photos. Because after the commercialization of the photos, we must be responsible for the photos that we take. But sometimes the intention of the photographer does not determine the meanings of photographs, because the photo has its own destiny and the fate will be decided by the owned thoughts and all sorts of strange ideas of various groups who use it. This is something we can’t control. In a word, this may be a difficult problem for us, but it still is our responsibility.