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 …
Read morePhotographer’s Journey: The incomparable feeling of an orgasm
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 …
Read morePhotographer’s journey: Changing my photographic style for Maria Beatty
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 …
Read morePhotographer’s journey: Discovering and exploring my sexuality for the first time
Through book projects I’ve discovered over and over how life affirming sexual pleasure is. I was obliged to care for my parents at an early age and this interfered with my personal space, which is why I still offer immediacy easily to people as I think I will gain insight and connection with them. Sometimes …
Read morePhotographer’s journey: The dangerous road to knowing yourself
Since my first published photograph of a woman with a wedding dress ripped off at the waist, standing over a huge cactus, was published in the Village Voice, I’ve often chosen to explore taboos. Over the years the projects went deeper into the chasm of sexual identity. Photography like radiation is dangerous and uncanny but …
Read morePhotographer’s journey: The healing power of photography