Daily Inspiration Quote by Jock Sturges

A photographer insisting he has no desire to “instruct anybody in shame” is already telling you where the landmines are buried. Jock Sturges spent decades photographing nude adolescents and families in naturist communities, work that has oscillated between art-world acclaim and public outrage. In that light, “the last person” reads as both humility and preemptive defense: don’t cast me as moralist, he implies, because the entire controversy around my images hinges on who gets to define harm, innocence, and exploitation.

The phrasing is strategically slippery. “Instruct” frames shame as something taught, institutional, almost civic. That’s a pointed jab at the culture of policing sexuality through pedagogy: parents, prosecutors, journalists, and even critics who turn discomfort into doctrine. Sturges positions himself as an observer rather than a legislator. Yet he’s also smuggling in a claim of artistic innocence: if shame is learned, then his camera isn’t the source of it; society is.

“That’s no errand for me” lands like a shrug, but it’s a loaded one. An “errand” is menial, outsourced labor, the kind of task you do for someone else’s agenda. He’s rejecting the role of enforcer while quietly indicting those who want him to serve as an example - either the corruptor to be punished or the confessor to apologize. The subtext is less “I’m above shame” than “I refuse your terms.” In a debate where optics are moral currency, that refusal is the whole strategy.