You Body, Your Guide

Your body - so uniquely created, magnificently intelligent, with senses that you need no explanation to, but just required to follow.

We often see our body as a regular object that serve us biologically and die. We focus more on ageing of the skin and shape of the muscles, than on the abilities to feel, regenerate itself and even guide us.

But our bodies a re more than what we can see and created for more than to use our sensations in a regular manner.

Are you aware of your inner wisdom? Have you experienced “strange” situations, dreams, thoughts or voices that have proven to you there’s something more than what we see?

Surely you have the feeling of a Deja Vu. Or when you think about somebody and they call you shortly. Or when somebody is untrue with you and despite their assurance of the oposite, you have this knowing deep down that later reveal the real truth.

Your body is here not only to serve you and help you live an amazing life, but to guide you to follow your deepest desires. It’s here with you, for you and you only - your personal assistant of the Universe who happens to be your best outfit too.

Pay attention. Keep a journal. Don’t ignore that quiet inner voice. It’s all aligned and here for you. You just carefully listen…

Your Body, Your Canvas

Who is there for you when no-one is there? Who is taking care of you, holding you tight, moving you forward, nurturing you and giving it’s best to guide and support you?

Your Body.

The Bestest of friends you will ever have. No judgement, no manipulation, just simply a reflection, love and service. Giving you back all that you give it, the choice is yours.

Took me years of physical and emotional pain to realise there’s no-one there but my body. My body, my house, my secret temple, my life diary.

Photographing my body has helped me reach this connection. A connection for belonging and acceptance that I was long longing for. Looking out in all the wrong places to finally look in the mirror and see that all I needed was right here during this whole time, waiting for me to realise it.

Out body is like a clean blank canvas. When we’re born is tight and fresh. With the ears and experiences you mark it with all different colours, chemicals and textures. The picture of our own life gets developed layer by layer, paint brush by paint brush. What we use and what we do with our canvas matters to how long and in what state will live. Why not take care of it to look its best until the end?

Sick and tired of the Photoshop

I’m sick and tired of the Photoshop, as it goes in the song…

No, really. I’m sick and tired of editing and liquefying bodies. Chasing perfection that doesn’t really exist. Preaching body positivity, when 90% of my fine art nude portfolio contains bodies and skin additionally manipulated in post-production.

I’m tired of it. Of faking it. Of pretending it not that bad. Or excusing my behaviour with “everyone else does it”. We are not perfect, our bodies are not perfect. Never were, never will be. They are perfectly imperfect , unique, and that’s the beauty of it. How our bodies look has to do with our genes and lifestyle, not of the technical abilities of media professionals.

I’ve been thinking A LOT on the subject for the past several days. What is my work about and how do I present it? Why do I keep retouching bodies, including mine, when I know how harmful this could be to the self-esteem and self-acceptance of the individual. Especially to women.

We’re living in a world where beauty has turned into a plastic-perfect-machine-reproduction result, making us feel not good enough in every aspect of our life. Aren’t we created as we were on purpose? Aren’t we different on purpose? Don’t we have an individual work to do here that is more important than the size of our dress and the brand of our anti-aging cream?

I know I’m not alone in this. I’m sure you have thoughts like this too. And I’m sure part of you thinks your body is not suitable enough for a fine art photo session. Part of you still thinks all those public imagery and celebrity reels are the truth of what human bodies ‘must’ look like. I know, because I’m in that train of thoughts too.

I’ve been a photographer and retoucher for 16 years now, with a close specialisation in artistic nude photography for the past 14. Yet this is the first time where I’m really close to just flip the table and shout: “Basta ya!!”

I have women all around me - family, friends, their children, online followers I don’t even know in person. What is my message? Why do I say to all those unique, beautiful women: “My darling, you’re one of a kind, but let me liquify your waist so you can look like the man-made social standard.” No, this is a hypocrisy and I better stop pretending I’m doing all of us a favour.

It’s time to turn the mirror toward me again. What is the relation I have with my body? What have I builded for the past 34 years, through the whole variety of experience and all the opportunities to learn, accept and get to know myself better. I know how to deliver a professional product, based on that man-made beauty standard, but can I fully reveal my flaws and encourage other women like myself to really love themselves for who they are the way they are? Haven’t we had enough of self hatred and comparison? Isn’t life something to be enjoyed rather than feared we won’t pass through the beauty control?

I know the ego game is never ending, but are we really victims of it or it’s just the easier choice? Can we learn to enjoy and be happy in our everchanging, ageing, marked by life and experiences but super intelligent body?

Art Nude Photo Session: Body & Piano

Music has a special pulling power. Isn’t it amazing how sounds can make you feel? Can take you places and bring back memories? Can change the frequency of your emotions and turn them upside out and inside out.

During one of my commissions, I had to photograph all the musicians with their instruments. Some instruments are easier to frame - those easy to move have more posing options to play with. But I found myself challenged by the keyboard. I adore the piano, I love the keys - back&white, square edges, you know, my favourite things, but the shape of a keyboard… well, the shape I find a bit weird, looking less inspiring than its sound.

So I challenged my own creativity - something so square and static, but so beautiful to me, can I transform it and give it another look, another feel, put some body shapes around?

Maybe it’s true that whatever you capture with a female body will look beautiful. Or maybe is my love towards both that make me feel that way.

What are your thoughts on the subject? 🎹

The human form - now and then

Through art history the human form has been a subject of investigation, an inspiring form and a way to record the current movement in history. From Greek mythology, through Baroque, New-Classicism and Renaissance, the human form has been an object of investigation, admiration and source of inspiration for the current artists to present day.

My admiration towards the human form has slowly changed my point of view and has become a main inspiration to my work. There was something in it that I’ve always been drawn to, not necessarily understanding why.

In our current age, the body has become an object, often considered inappropriate by its looks or draft that needs fixing. The aim for over perfectionism in our modern times has become an example for generations and an ideal to be aimed. The hyped commercialisation and over exaggerated standard of public figures turned the natural beauty of body differences into to be one of the copy.

It’s is great to have access to software and advanced medicine to be used when necessary, but we lost the idea of how real bodies actually look. We ignore the perfect imperfection of the way Nature works and create. We aim to filter, retouch and adjust everything we can in order to look and feel like somebody else, while missing the main point - we’re all different, we’re all deserving, we’re all beautiful in out own unique way.

Sometimes is hard to fight the ego, to make it understand that what it sees is not what is best. To stop it to aim for something that will cause damage and distraction in the long term. To make it understand what the soul is seeing…

But also this is part of our current reality - to gain control over ourselves, what we consume and how much energy we spent on it. to understand first for ourselves who we truly are, what we are and where we want to go next.

With all the noice, AI and retouch at every corner, looking, accepting and understanding what our body actually is has never been more needed. As this is where each of us lives - inside the given body, the only one we will have in this life and the one we need to make most peace with, instead of fighting it in every step of the way.