Gord – USA

When I heard about the project and then saw some its excellent photography, I was intrigued by it.  After contacting Erica and discussing it with her, I wanted to participate.

For several years, I’ve been working as an artists’ model and pose nude fairly often, yet always indoors.  Plus, I’ve mostly been captured with a brush or pencil, not a camera.  I love the blending of nudity and nature, and that was a major incentive for doing this.  (And at 59 years old, I thought, “Why not?”)

The actual shoot wasn’t work at all, as modeling can often be.  Savoring the warmth of the midday sun, and a light breeze, on my skin made it all the more enjoyable.  It was fun and relaxing, and Erica and I–photographer and subject–meshed.  Afterwards, I realized how open I was.  Not so much as a model, but in what I expressed to Erica, and how candid I was in our interviews before and after the shoot.

I think that’s what I’ll take with me the most from this experience. Not what I revealed of myself, but about myself.  Shakespeare wrote “to thine own self be true” (as we all should), and I was–embodied.