At first glance, it appears that there’s no one naked in Trevor Christensen’s collection of nude portraits. The man above is dressed, so are the people in the photos below. So if they’re not nude, who is? You’ll be surprised, but their expressions might give it away.
Here’s what Christensen, who’s allowed us to use his photos, has said about his cool new project:
The photographer/subject paradigm is one of inequality. Nude Portraits is about leveling the playing field in an unorthodox way. Instead of focusing on bringing the subject to a place of ease, where I am, this project brings me to a place of vulnerability.
This vulnerability is achieved by making portraits without clothing. These are nude portraits in the sense that I, the photographer, am nude, while the subject is not.
Ok, that’s pretty awesome, and also pretty surprising. I generally go to pictures before I go to words when I look at something, so when I read “nude portraits” and didn’t see any nudity, I thought that this was just some kind of clever title for a project about how our clothing makes us nude, or about how being in one’s natural habitat is allowing one of to be vulnerable. But Christensen’s idea, that the photographer is the one that’s nude, is really innovative and clearly brings about a different kind of vulnerability in the subject. I mean, what do you even do when the guy taking your picture is naked (and it is not in the context of sex)? Where do you look? Do you make eye contact? Actually, just thinking about is giving me hives so I’m probably not going to apply to be Christensen’s next model. But, hey, he’s always looking. Why don’t you drop him a line? You could always have an awesome photo like this. Or you can just follow the project on Twitter and Instagram.
Images by Trevor Christensen. Used with permission
H/t: LargeNZ1