Domai
Eolake Stobblehouse is a man trying to achieve the impossible. He's trying to get us to stop think dirty thoughts when we look at pictures of naked women. The interesting part is what he's using to try and do this: pictures of naked women.
His website Domai is dedicated to returning the appreciation of beauty in general into daily life. Specifically, he seeks to dissasociate artistic nudity and pornography. For many people there may already seem to be an obvious distinction between the two, but it's one that much of western society in general does seem to struggle over at times.
The internet, being loaded to the gunwales with a mind-numbing variety of extremely hard core pornography, has picked up a reputation as a den of vice. And to be honest, it's well-deserved. That shouldn't be such a big problem, after all pornography and hardcore sexuality are perfectly normal facets of the human condition. The problem is really one of proximity. People get nervous when they discover that the innocent beige box in the living room is harbouring some pretty entrenched depravity. I guess they don't really see hardcore porn as a suitable accompaniment to their tasteful interior furnishings, nor do they want it to spurt out of the PC all over their kids.
But there's also a more subtle issue here: what is obscenity? Where do we draw the line? More importantly, have we even drawn a line at all? Eolake, through his project Domai, wants to do just that. He strongly opposes those who define all nudity as belonging on the same continuum as pornography, and he has some pretty heavyweight ammunition to back up his position. After all, nudity within art has a tradition that stretches back thousands of years. Only the kind of prudes who would have a fig leaf placed on Michelangelo's David fail to realise this.
So Domai is a website with a mission: to make beautiful nude photography ok. Eolake is an aesthete who encourages his readers to celebrate beauty for its own sake. Every week he sends out a newsletter containing some free pictures and a letter relating a reader's story about appreciating beautiful women al fresco. I've been receiving it for several years now, and I can assure you that it's all done extremely tastefully. I recommend getting on the mailing list, especially if you're a bit shy about fully signing up to site containing nudes.
The fact is, once you get past the whole idea of any controversy, you quickly realise that Domai is simply a photography website. The photos are of an exceptionally high standard, and have spawned a new movement in online erotic photography. Eolake defines his aesthetic as the "simple nude", where the photographer captures the beauty of the model without contrived poses or studio setups. The photos are shot outside, in natural poses with beautiful women in a range of sizes and body shapes. No silicone, no props, just a smile and a top gun photographer.
Domai is very much the child of its creator, Eolake, and it reflects his own personal philosophies. In fact, they're defined and explored in some depth on the site. The core message seems to be that the appreciation of beauty and keeping a light heart are essential to the journey of becoming a fully functioning human being. I think that's a wonderful message and wish him and Domai even more success than they have had so far.
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