The second assignment for the Documentary workshop was to photograph a classmate in the nude.

The degree of nudity was up to us.

The purpose of the exercise was two fold. First, to put our partner at ease in a difficult situation by making them

trust and believe in your skills as a  photographer. And second, to experience the vulnerability of being on the other

side of the camera. We probably could have done the exercise with our clothes on.

But the point of being naked was if you see beauty in people it shows up in your images.

I was paired with Eva Johansson, a 50-something woman from Finland who is in NY to take food styling and lighting

workshops. The lighting class was cancelled so she transferred into this workshop. 

(She said if she known about this assignment she would have dropped the class.)

I am not at liberty to post the images I took of her but they were tasteful and within the boundaries that she set.

These are a couple of images she took of me. They were shot in my livingroom.

I love them.

Even though my eye zeroes in on all the things I don’t want people to notice (crows feet, the melding of my neck

and chin, droopy boobs) I look at the photos and I feel beautiful. 

This exercise hit home that I am a 47-year-old woman studying photography in New York: I am

exposed, I am flawed and I am okay.