On Amazon, the cover of photographer Ellen Stagg's new book, Dirty Girl Collection: Naked and Uncensored, is almost entirely covered with two large censorship bars. The original cover, which shows model Hollis Ireland on her back with knees pulled to her chin, is censored as well, though only with an artfully placed black dot that contains the book's title. Neither attempt takes away from the image's raw sexual charge.
"I love that little bubble, because you know exactly what's underneath there," Stagg says over cups of herbal tea at Kellogg's Diner in her Brooklyn neighborhood.
Ireland, wearing turquoise fishnet stockings and little else, gazes directly at the viewer. Flip inside the book and there's a fully nude spread, where her facial expression (obscured on Amazon) remains the central visual draw.
Throughout the book's 300-plus glossy pages, it's the models' faces that catch the viewers' attention, and stand in stark contrast to the vacant stares typically seen in Playboy and Penthouse. "I want the viewer to have a crush on the model and be her friend," Stagg says. She often shoots in and around the homes of the models and her friends—and occasionally at her own home—to capture authentic moments of desire.
"I'm not doing it to titillate somebody, but if you do like it, that's awesome," Stagg, 39, says as we discuss the differences between erotica and porn. A major difference, she says, is the endgame of "somebody wanting to get off." She shoots in a "trade for content" structure where neither she nor the model is paid by the other, but they both use the content on their sites. "She seems to put more of her heart and soul into her work," porn star Jelena Jensen explains of Stagg's appeal. Burlesque performer Penny Wren echoes this sentiment, adding, "I feel stronger, smarter, and sexier just by being in her company."
The shoots and accompanying behind-the-scenes videos on staggstreet.com are more like naked hangout sessions than anything else. In one with genderqueer porn actress Jiz Lee and adult entertainer Chocolate Chip, there's chat about convenient BART stops, cluing viewers in on its Bay Area location. Chip appeared in the Adult Video News award-winning Going Down: An Official Guide to Cunnilingus with another Stagg model, the BDSM porn actress, educator, and writer Madison Young. "When we met, I didn't know that she did hardcore porn," says Stagg of Young. "The first time I photographed her, she took off her underwear and she had red pubic hair. I was like, it's like a unicorn. You hear about it, but you've never seen it. And then when you do, you're like, it's real! She was so excited that I treated her pubic hair that way."
Stagg, who identifies as straight and wears a nose ring and a frequent smile, has shot commercial campaigns and for mainstream porn magazines, but has been developing her unique erotic portraits since her high school days in suburban Connecticut. She recalls one of her earliest shoots at 18: "We took my one guy friend and put a blindfold on him and tied him up to [my friend's] bed. She wore lingerie and was whipping him." The shoot was influenced by Madonna's Sex book, as well as Stagg's interest in Catwoman, though she was unaware of BDSM at the time.
Stagg decided early she wouldn't shoot men because of what she calls "separation of church and state." "Maybe it's too close to home because I like penises. I'm not setting it in stone, but for the almost 10 years I've had Stagg Street, it's been strictly vaginas," she says, joking that "strictly vaginas" should be the tagline for her website. "Women are magical, and when they are naked, even more so. Skin and body parts are so tactile and exciting."
Stagg has a disarming way of discussing nudity and sexuality. "I try to make it so my models are the most sexy and beautiful that they feel. I don't necessarily direct them in a way that's 'now let's see your ass,'" which is an all-too-common trope in porn. She remembers shooting a model with "a very voluptuous butt" who does dominatrix work and asking, "Do you know how much power your ass has?" The model had never thought about her body in those terms before and said to Stagg, "That is when I got comfortable in front of your camera. I realized you weren't just looking at my ass, but there was something powerful, beautiful, and sensual behind it."
Charlotte Stokely, a porn actress who starred in the remake of the skin flick classic Debbie Does Dallas titled Debbie Loves Dallas, sums it up another way: "She's open to the models' ideas and shoots us raw in all our beauty."
