Digital Diaries

Rating:
Summary: Porn/art? What's the problem? It was all once PORN!!
Review: As a photographic enthusiast, I'm not expert enough to expound on all the ramifications of Ms. Merritt's work. All I can offer is my opinion as a human being, as a man, and as someone who likes a wide variety of photography.

The images in this book spoke to me. I found them startling and refreshing, much like when I hear a song that forces me to call the DJ and ask, "Who is that?". I like photo work that balances the posed and the spontaneous; the raw and the refined; the erotic and the intellectual. And because Ms. Merritt is not schooled in photography, because she is creating images that already exist in her head and express her individuality and sexuality, I found the photos in "Digital Diaries" pleasingly honest.

Whether it's music, movies, or photography, I appreciate honesty the most. Contrived or calculated works of art may appeal to the brain, but Ms. Merrit's in-your-face photography hits the gut as well as the head. I would've liked to see more photos - with a little more of a range in style and content - but Natacha Merrit boldly pushed some boundaries in this attractive hardcover. I hope she continues to express herself however she sees fit.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely Sexy
Review: I found this book to be extremely sexy, sensual and refreshing. It will appeal to the natural voyeur in anyone and I hope it encourages more people to go get a digital camera and do the same.

Hats off to Natacha!

Rating:
Summary: Erotic, beautiful, and well put-together.
Review: I think it's particularly impressive for a woman as young as she is that she seems to have embraced her own sexuality and used it for herself, to please herself, and to become well known and respected. Through her work comes a self-awareness and thoughtfulness I find very impressive. And I think it effectively challenges the frequently cited mantra about women inescapably being sexual victims and particularly refutes Dvorkin's claims that all sexually explicit imagery is inherently abusive to women. It's clear that, even at 21, Ms. Merritt is in charge and controls each situation and the men she photographs are props for her, rather than the other way around.

Rating:
Summary: Minnesoter
Review: Lucky, pretty, self-exploitative narcisst needs rent, and money for coke. Yawn. I have better porn, er... "art" under my mattress.

Rating:
Summary: A raw and honest look into a young woman's sexuality
Review: Natacha Merritt's Digital Diaries is less an art book of nude photos than a raw and honest look --- some would say peek --- into a young woman's sexuality. It is not just a look, but a visual documentation of sexual experimentation including both a casual sexual situations and more fetishist imagery.

Digital Diaries is also very sexy just like its author-photographer. Natacha doesn't convey a shy personality, but actually comes off as a very liberated and aggressive young woman. Her book is not for everyone and certainly not for someone who doesn't have an open mind. Those who are willing to explore the many faces of sexuality, they can't go wrong by acquiring Ms. Merritt's Digital Diaries.

Rating:
Summary: Porn/art? What's the problem? It was all once PORN!!
Review: Newton, Mapplethorpe, Outterbridge, Man Ray, Brassai, Brandt, Weston, Stieglitz.....
It was all porn, right?
I am a big fan of the publisher (for putting out edgy and thought provoking material) and the general style/commentary.
I have had an interest in this book ever since I read a story on how it was made. it was a creation of the publisher more than the artist. Girl meets digital camera, takes pictures, find mode of expression, artists admire, work evolves, publisher hears about it and prints it. Anyone who is any sort of photographer would agree that the images in the first portion of the book are essentially ...[fluff]. But the expression is honest and raw. What more could you ask for?

If you have a problem with Porn, don't buy the book. If you want Porn, it would be a waste of money to buy the book. If you have a problem with genitalia, don't even look at it. If you want an honest, raw, and different view of human sexuality though someone else's eyes, this is the book for you. It's refreshing that someone is making these images, someone is printing them, and that someone is thinking about them.

Ps. It is a bit short and disorganized. Good for the collection, but not for the personal library.

Rating:
Summary: art?
Review: People either love this book or hate it. I LOVE IT. One reviewer said that it was "porn disguised as art". Whatever. Contained within the pages of this well put together book, is pure...art.
I slowly flipped through the pages and absorbed every sensuous,...pixel of Natacha. THIS GIRL KNOWS WHAT SHE IS DOING.
Some reviewers complained about the quality of the pictures (there are prominent and obvious pixels in some of her images)- duh- that is the effect and the image that Merritt was trying to achieve.
This book is an excellent coffee table book (...- I'm thinking about getting one for every room of my home!). It's cover is stunningly beautiful and the book itself is put together very well.
Have an open mind and GET THIS BOOK. Merritt is brilliant.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, and some way artistic !!
Review: Poor photographic tecnics, but some naiveness in the pics create a beautiful book!!. Natacha have a very expressive eyes and total acceptation of his body and her sexuality!. Not for everyone but a delightful entry into the new digital photography!!.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly touching at points, with artistic intent.
Review: Though it'd be easy to lump Natacha Merritt with the rest of the webcam/internet exhibitionists, it took only one examination of this book to make me see otherwise in Merritt's digital photography.

With a maverick's audacity and technical disregard (one interviewer made the humorous remark that Merritt "can't tell an f-stop from a bus stop"), Merritt has somehow managed to discover a visual style all her own that fuses strange angles, simple lighting, unusual placement of her subjects, and introspection into one. The more explicit photos oftimes threaten to de-humanize Merritt herself and her subjects, but those are counterbalanced by some very tasteful, evocative shots that convey the subjects' internal drama.

Merritt makes a better subject than any other person in this book for her own camera. It doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous, but she has two things to her advantage: Expressive eyes, and the unique dynamic of photographer-as-subject. Is she simultaneously empowered and scrutinized by the camera? How often does she know what exactly the image looks like? And which photos are staged? Which ones are taken as a fly-on-the-wall snapshot? Merritt is always interesting as her own subject, and it is telling that the best set of pictures in this book, the "self search" series, focus much less on sexual acts than on self-discovery, examination, and Merritt's relationship to the camera and to her own body. Most of these are close-ups from wildly imaginative angles, shadowy, and intriguing -- the crowning picture is Merritt looking at her own hand in a mirror, contemplating. These pictures tell many stories about the young woman both in front of and behind the camera, and they're beautiful and revealing in a way far beyond the sexually explicit pictures. Most of those do manage to achieve a degree of honesty and spontaneity as well, making them erotically charged.

Accusations of narcissism can't be avoided and Merritt can probably be said to be guilty of it sometimes. But what she produces from her unique work methods is so intriguing, and her revelation of herself as photographer (a rarity in photography) so far-reaching, that this book remains a great fascination. It'd be a shame if it were to be lumped with the usual erotic photography and exhibitionistic endeavours. Digital Diaries has much more to offer.

Rating:
Summary: stellar stuff
Review: with enough study and practice anyone can master an art, but there is learned talent and then there's natural talent. when looking at these pictures you get the feeling that taking photographs comes as easy as breathing for natacha merritt. even with this book being very outwardly erotic, the deeper inter-lying theme being vulnerability and honesty. this being because of the use of mirrors so much and her subject almost always being herself.

this is not something that fans of traditional/conventional photography would enjoy. with the digital medium being somewhat a lazy one, meaning the regular "technical" skills of photography do not really apply; it is understandable why this is so easily dismissed as to not being anything special. none the less, i believe the composition is beautiful though, the play of space, the feeling you get that she was not trying to create something but only that she was trying to capture something that already exists. photography raw.

highly recommended for the right person.