Photographer’s Journey: How water makes you feel safe

It was fascinating to hear from the many women we portrayed in our book Orgasm about their sexual lives which varied a lot. For example, Nirvano talked about how including water into her erotic life gives her a feeling of protection: “I have had many experiences in water or under waterfalls and I love surfing …

Read morePhotographer’s Journey: How water makes you feel safe

Photographer’s Journey: Learning a valuable lesson from one of my models

One of the interviews Marion Schneider did for our book Erotic Lives of Women was with Val. After her interview, I wondered how I could photograph this active woman. In her apartment she had exercise equipment and sport trophies. Yet Val explained during her interview that since entering her 50’s she no longer had her …

Read morePhotographer’s Journey: Learning a valuable lesson from one of my models

Photographer’s Journey: Getting to know your sexuality while having fun with shower heads

For our book Orgasm we interviewed Dragonfly who talked about her pleasurable experience with shower heads: “Detachable shower heads are just fun if you want to clean everything. One day I showered to clean THAT thing and I was like ‘oh wow!’. So that’s why I took a lot of long showers. To which my mother …

Read morePhotographer’s Journey: Getting to know your sexuality while having fun with shower heads

Photographer’s Journey: The healing power of water

I talked to a number of women while at hot springs when finishing my photo book, Healing Waters, who told me they imagined their stay would reduce stress from abuse and break ups. They said also that they discovered that while re-cooperating in the water it awakened their “body feelings”, opening up a renewed sexuality. …

Read morePhotographer’s Journey: The healing power of water

Photographer’s Journey: The power of self-portraiture

Time spent seeing “in the moment” through self-portraiture prepared me to photograph Erotic Lives of Women, which called for me to photograph women’s strongest erotic experiences and intersperse them between interviews with writer Marion Schneider. Self-portraiture has a historic and contemporary impact, as artists weave their personal evolution into the larger sphere. It can also …

Read morePhotographer’s Journey: The power of self-portraiture

Photographer’s Journey: The orgasmic experience of a wedding proposal

After an interview for Orgasm, I’d talk to the woman about how she wished to be photographed while using my own intuition and eyeing the location, her clothes or objects there to offer ideas. In the shoot in Colombia, Marcela said she wished to show her strongest orgasm that happened after her boyfriend asked her …

Read morePhotographer’s Journey: The orgasmic experience of a wedding proposal

Photographer’s Journey: Representation without objectification

Some colleagues, curators and experts have written about my photographs which provides feedback and shows me that my process is useful and important. Mimi Schippers, Professor at University of New Orleans, wrote: “There are very few people who, in our pornified society, can visually capture and eroticize the female and feminine body without objectifying it. …

Read morePhotographer’s Journey: Representation without objectification