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Art au naturel
(by Kara Krekeler - June 26, 2008)
When Central West End resident Stan Trampe sees the words “dead end,” he gets excited. Same goes for “no outlet” and “bridge out.”
A former commercial real estate agent, Trampe now dedicates his time to photographing nude female models, and often takes them outside for photo shoots, hence his love for the signs.
“They’re great signs for us. It means that nobody will go down there,” he said, adding that he doesn’t seek permits to shoot in public places including Forest Park. Instead, he just takes his models to outdoor venues at dawn and hopes to avoid the police. “I have no fear of being arrested. I’d never get the permits for [the shoots].”
On June 28, Phd Gallery in South St. Louis will open Sensitive Content, an exhibit that juxtaposes Trampe’s black-and-white female nudes with the black-and-white male nudes of photographer Jeff Palmer. Trampe said that he’s looking forward to the exhibit, which he said may throw people for a loop, particularly when they take a gander at Palmer’s work.
“The way it will be done, [gallery owner Philip Hitchcock] won’t have a room of my stuff and the other guy’s stuff. He’ll have things interspersed and sometimes have companion shots near each other,” Trampe said, explaining that Hitchcock had specifically chosen a shot of a woman wearing only high heels standing in front of a door because it would work well with a photo of Palmer’s that features a man in high heels.
“This should be kind of fun,” he said. “This is not a serious business. We do beautiful things, but we have fun too.”
While he had always done a bit of photography, Trampe fell in love with nude photography in 1987 when a friend gave him a book of nudes by photographer Robert Farber. The images were so striking that Trampe was compelled to attend a week-long workshop with Farber in California. When he returned to St. Louis, Trampe had been converted.
“I did very little nude work before I went to the workshop, but when I went I realized that there was my beauty,” he said. “There’s nothing in the world like [the beauty of a female nude] to me.
“It was only when I went to the workshop that I became serious about photography,” he continued. “I dropped everything else and devoted all my spare time to photography.
More than 20 years later and well into his 70s, Trampe is still deeply committed to producing artistic nude photography, both outside and in his studio in the Central West End. Every week, Trampe does at least two photo shoots, each of which lasts about four hours. Trampe said that he rarely has a plan for what props will be used or what sort of photo he’s looking for, but instead relies on the creativity of the model.
“Most of my models are more creative, more intelligent, more real than your average person,” he said, adding that he generally works with a model over the course of a year or more to foster a creative relationship. “I pay them, but mostly they want to create just the same as I want to create.”
That said, Trampe does have high standards for his models, particularly when it comes to punctuality and looking natural. He said that he won’t photograph a woman with breast implants or tan lines, and while he’s not a big fan of tattoos, he said he recognizes that they’re a growing part of the youth culture. Indeed, several of the photographs on his website, www.stantrampe.com, feature women with tattoos.
While some of Trampe’s work is in color — more show up in the “experimental” section of his website than anywhere else — he estimated that about 90 percent of his work is done in black and white and always with striking use of light and shadows. Light, Trampe said, is the most important aspect of his work, which is part of the reason why his studio and home have areas for both natural- and artificial-light photography.
“It’s all about seeing, it doesn’t matter what kind of photography you’re doing. Every time, there’s one constant: What is the light?” he said. “A lot of times, the first thing people ask a photographer is what kind of camera [he or she is using]. It doesn’t matter. It’s light and composition.”
Sensitive Content opens at 7 p.m. June 28 at the Phd Gallery, 2300 Cherokee St. For more information call 664-6644.
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