Art nude photographers probably are asked this question endlessly, but it is natural to wonder how the choice is made to work in this genre. While every story is different, Thorsten Jankowski is not likely to be alone in always having been “a visually driven person.” Of course, not everyone begins the process by leaving an art director position in a new media agency to take on “more strategic goals in a large company.”
That was in 2002. By 2004 he felt a lack of visual creativity and asked a pho¬tographer friend to borrow some lighting equipment. “I began taking studio works in my home,” Thor recalls. “That was the start.” He had been taking photographs since he was about 13 or 14, so naturally he felt studio photog¬raphy could be an outlet for his inner aesthetic. He began with portraiture but rapidly turned to aesthetic nudes. “Many images I had in mind before taking them,” he recalls. “I just waited for the perfect environment.” By 2005 he had a larger studio where he could work on form studies.
Sculptor Auguste Rodin became a central inspiration. “He never polished his surfaces to create a perfect image,” Thor says of Rodin. “That’s a parallel to my work, if I may compare myself to this epoch making artist. I prefer not to polish the model’s surface; I love the speckles, wrinkles, and all that makes a human being, and I love the space around a model.

Carrie Leigh Magazine 2010