Big as in Beautiful...

My sense of beauty has always eschewed the constraints of size, race or any other immaterial considerations. Today I am featuring a model who represents the "big" woman. One thing I have always admired about models I shoot nude or partially nude is their comfort level with those things about themselves that others might disparage. My friend and model LAKIA AMOR is one of those. I have shot with her only once before, but have remained in touch with her. I enjoyed my shoot with her and am looking forward to doing it again soon. Before we shot, we had an extensive conversation about things related to her life at that time and we settled upon the idea of exploring molting or the shedding of things. Burdensome things, worn out things, just things. The first picture here is intended to convey that notion. I hope we succeeded in doing just that.

I also want to salute a director friend of mine ALBERTO FERRERAS who published his first novel B as in Beauty, last summer. There is common ground between these pictures and his book which is about learning to celebrate who we are inside and out. Whether fetishized or objectified, big women carried a burden most of us will never understand. It is therefore a triumph whenever a woman or in my case a photographer discovers the B in Beauty.