Customer Reviews

Self-Images: 100 Women

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The idea behind this book is simple: 100 women models, one box camera, one white room with no props, one video monitor to see what the camera is seeing and one shutter chord to take a photo of yourself... nude. This is perhaps the first book of photography where the photographer himself is not actually doing the camera work. 100 women, from vastly different walks of life and ages, pose before the camera to capture how they see themselves. Rival had only two requests: don't move the camera, and photograph yourself in the nude. Like "Naked New York" by Greg Friedler, people looking for hot, "model perfect" women will be disappointed (I'd recommend Playboy or some other rag). Those who are looking for a wonderful, successful experiment in the model exerting control over her environment, vs. just passively posing, and the exploration of one's self-image, will find this book refreshing, tasteful and moving.

Each photo has the same format: seamless white background; a single model, except in a few cases; her choice of how she wants her nudity to be seen. She has the trigger, she decides what image to take. Rival (the photographer who compiled the collection) created the setting and chose the images to present, but the models chose how they wanted to be seen.

Their images of themselves are as varied as the women themselves. Sandra (p.67) and Sophie use their nudity as humor. Suzana (p.19) and Angelika (p.97) challenge the viewer directly. Irene (p.22) and especially Julia (p.143) make paradoxically bold statements of shyness. Others present them selves as mothers (p.24,126), as icons (p.74), as glamor figures (p.132), as works of art in themselves (p.33), or as vessels of pure joy (p.27). Of course, these and more are all true representations - and can all be true of one woman at different times.

Rival's collection spans a wide range of figures, including some you might not have expected (p.84). This isn't the most academic of figure collections, but it is fun.

-- wiredweird