nice, but I wonder what the author's real motives
The volume abounds with nude and seminude photographs of children and adolescents. This is ostensibly because children and adolescents are less inhibited models (8).
On top of this, he offers numerous other reasons. One reason is informality. In one photograph, he tries to convince himself that a girl at least 7 years old would typically play outside wearing only shorts (22). In another photograph, he tries to convince himself that a boy would typically perch on a tree branch wearing only undershorts (16).
Another reason is relevance. In one picture, two boys, disguised as Indians, appear shirtless (32). He also skinny-shoots a boy in a forest setting and titling the picture "Young Fawn" (164). In another picture, an adolescent girl posing as a member of the working class appears shirtless because shirtlessness symbolizes the working class (198).
Of course, nudity and seminudity are appropriate in some settings, so Hodges makes certain not to miss any of those settings. He poses a girl at home in underpants to show how she is seen by her family (76). Since total nudity is related to the river and the ocean, this is where he sets several photographs (152).
Composition is still another reason. In "Study in Rotundity," a chubby girl sits backwards in a curved chair, facing the viewer and showing her upper chest (50). For other photographs, he argues that a plain subject is imperative in order to compensate for a turbulent background (92). He could just as easily simplify the background or ask the subject to wear a solid-colored outfit, but why throw away a perfect excuse?
Hodges is also fond of using nudity as a symbol. A girl inspects a bud on a bush while showing her own budding breasts (178). A boy sitting on the riverbank displays his penis as proof of his gender (162). In the companion piece, titled "Nature's Verge," a girl with baby breasts and a fuzzy vagina steps into the river (160). He eventually runs out of constructs to represent, so he uses nudity as a symbol of nothing in particular (149).
Hodges' real reason might be that he got a buzz out of stripping children and showing them off. In other words, he might have been like an alcoholic on the constant lookout for people to toast.