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?

New Address, New Adventure, New Collaboration

Do you like changes? Sometimes they come unexpectedly and force us to re-adjust, other times they are long wished and awaited.

The second is more correct in my current state - for a long time I’ve been wishing to have my own public studio space, ideally in the city I want to live and create. And here I am sharing with you the exact outcome of my manifestation - I opened my photo studio in Barcelona! Hooray!

But is it as easy as it might sounds? Are we able to accept the physical outcome of our long, mental wishes? Or do we get scared when it all apear in our life? Sometimes wishing for something is easier than having it. Wishing takes out the responsibility to accept and manage it. It puts it in a future time that one day it might be here but until then we can act and be as we are - comfortable in our own current reality.

What happens though when our decires actually manifest? When what we saw in our head is in our hands and others can see it too? Do we take the responsibility or self-sabotage ourselves out fo fear? To want a certain outcome for yourself or in your life you have to be able to take the responsibility for your actions. This includes not only the discipline before the result but also the acceptance and ownership of the manifestation after it has appeared. I still find it hard to do the second. Which in itself puts me in this bizarre loop - why do I push what I wanted so bad when it’s finally here?

That’s being a human, isn’t it? Resistance and self-sabotage appear strongly especially with artists, as our work is not something that can be measured or comes with a handy manual. Fear will never go, it’s here to help is when we need it. However, it’s our responsibility to asses when and where is helping us or doing the oposite. Out of fear to accept what we always wanted can ruin all of our hard work and focused daydreaming. Fear of being who you know you can be inside because of what others might think will only lead you to self harm in a form of addictions or mental health issues. What we see in our head, what we desire, the person who we know we are inside are all here, given personally to us for a reason. No-one else is like you, and you’re not like anyone else. We’re all the same, all connected in this universal life, but we’re all here to spread love and create in our own unique way. So embrace it! Be it! Accept who you are, what you are here to do, what it is given to you in result of your own hard work, effort and clear vision.

You know what they say - be yourself, everyone else is taken. Accept that might be different than everyone else you know. Accept that you deserve what has come to you, because you’re the one entitled to have it. Accept your power, magnificence, your right to be fully who you are. Accept it and go forward with it, because it’s here for you. You deserve it just because you can see it!

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.

Nature is the wisest, your body is part of it

We are part of Nature, our bodies are part of Nature and Nature has its own timing, that we don’t fully understand. The divine timing of the universe that moves, shifts and arranges everything and everyone.

So often we fight it all. Our ego wants to call the shots, test its own creator is Nature. Our human desire for control and knowing it all is what drags us back and puts us in uncomfortable situations. Living in this highly materialistic world is not helping us much either. But can we let go a little and learn how to trust? Can we double up on the flow of Nature instead of our singular aim for management?

Our bodies experience it all. By forcing control, we often hurt ourselves physically and mentally. By aiming towards goals, we often pay with our own body health and sanity. By neglecting the needs of our body, we fall into the path of suffering.

How can we help ourselves? - By spending more time in nature, being quiet, listening. By re-connecting with the source we all came from. By acknowledging our own inner voice that guides and supports us in any step of the way, so we know when it’s time to step back and when to jump forward.

If we don’t listen and ignore - we suffer. If we listen, we take the inevitable downsides of life more lightly as they come. Nothing is permanent, all we need to do is find our own balance within this creative realm.