Sunday, April 20, 2008

"This is Who I am"

I love this book. Here's the description from Amazon:

"Fifty-four portraits of women that are striking, beautiful, and real. The bodies in this book have been shaped by the full sweep of the feminine experience.

They belong to 54 women from all over the country, ages 19 to 95, of all sizes and shapes, ethnicities, and life experiences, who were willing to expose their naked physical forms in This Is Who I Am. They are ordinary women only in the sense that none is a professional model. They are in all other ways extraordinary—courageous, curious, thoughtful, speaking unflinchingly about their bodies, then allowing themselves to be photographed to inspire other women to make peace with their physical selves, "to glorify the real beauty of all women."

Certainly, the feminine nude form is not new to artists and photographers. But the portraits in This Is Who I Am, taken by award-winning photographer Rosanne Olson, with a steady, unjudgmental eye, speak loudly to the American obsession of feminine perfection—slim hips and full breasts, high cheekbones and tiny waists, taut skin and eternal youth—and even more loudly to the way real women, with real bodies and real lives, look."

2 comments:

Dana S. Whitney said...

I'll look for this book. Body image issues are SO rampant. Have you read about Lucien Freud's latest painting of a VERY obese woman (French!!) that is apparently going to command tons of money at auction? Or there's http://www.posemaniacs.com/ Posemaniacs which is pretty helpful!
Have fun.

Tess Kincaid said...

This beautiful book looks like one I would love...wonderful photography and valuable theme. Thanks for the tip, Sharon!