photography – Women Empowerment

Photographer’s Journey: How water makes you feel safe

AnyaSunita — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 10:00:31 +0000

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 ...

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

AnyaSunita — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 10:00:37 +0000

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 ...

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

AnyaSunita — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 10:00:31 +0000

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 ...

Photographer’s Journey: The healing power of water

AnyaSunita — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:00:37 +0000

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. ...

Photographer’s Journey: The power of self-portraiture

AnyaSunita — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 10:00:54 +0000

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 ...

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

AnyaSunita — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 10:00:48 +0000

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 ...

Photographer’s Journey: Representation without objectification

AnyaSunita — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 10:00:06 +0000

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. ...

Photographer’s Journey: The incomparable feeling of an orgasm

AnyaSunita — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 05:25:53 +0000

Orgasm has come to mean a replenishment of energy – a vibrating splash that throws you into the cave and you end up floating with this feeling. It’s like tiny pearls popping off of a strand — pearls that pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop until it’s over. It puts you in a ...

Photographer’s journey: Changing my photographic style for Maria Beatty

AnyaSunita — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 09:00:03 +0000

Maria Beatty, a filmmaker who lived on the 5th floor of the Chelsea Hotel, was among the first women to agree to be in my book Erotic Lives of Women. As a hotel lobby friend she trusted me, so she invited us (co-editor Marion and I) to her room to shoot her and a partner’s ...

Photographer’s journey: Discovering and exploring my sexuality for the first time

AnyaSunita — Thu, 17 May 2018 12:00:57 +0000

As a child I stood in the hall outside the open door of my parents’ bedroom listening to the sound of my father’s breathing. He couldn’t sleep. My mother said I mustn’t disturb him as he was recovering from a heart attack and was weak from his World War II injuries. He was in his ...