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March 23, 2005
Stone Nudes vs. Outside Magazine?
Because I have so much free time on my hands, I've started a David-and-Goliath-esque shit-stirring campaign. The cover of the latest Outside magazine looks suspiciously like it's part of Dean Fidelman's Stone Nudes project. Coincidence? Unlikely, since there's a mention of the Stone Nudes Calendars in the article.
It gets juicier. Having been more involved in the whole Stone Nudes affair than I perhaps ought to have been, since 1999, I know that Outside magazine interviewed Dean about his calendars for a review back in 2001 or 2002. Unfortunately for calendar sales that year, they decided to drop the piece since there were "no famous climbers" involved. So it's not like they can argue that they had no idea about what Dean was doing.
But the real ethics issue to me is that the photo editor at Outside was emailing Dean a few months ago in an attempt to get the contact info of any "particularly beautiful girls" for this shoot. "It's not like they'll be naked or anything," he insisted (hmm). Dean started ignoring their emails when it became clear that they weren't going to be considering him or any other climbing photographers for the shoot, they weren't going to adequately scratch his back (is it ever enough?) in return for scouting locations or passing Stone Nudes climbers along, and in his words, "they didn't have any intention of giving anything back to the climbing community."
So. I could just ignore all of the above, or I could muster up all my communications skills and try to get some sort of satisfaction for the little creative project that the majority of the outdoor industry has been blowing off for years. Suffice to say I just called Outside's art department: "I just wanted to make sure I am accurately representing your side of the story," I said to the voicemail box. Two minutes later I got a call back from the manager, who claims she has no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the April cover. And she referred me to the Communications Director, "who will investigate the issue for me." I see how it is... I'm not allowed to go straight to the source, fine, they can circle their wagons. I'm just fascinated to see what story they'll come up with.
Posted by Elizabeth at March 23, 2005 10:33 AM