H&E Magazine Publication - 2023

 

We are Ginny and Chris and we run Ginny’s Photography and Art studio in the heart of Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire. We’ve had our studio for 3 years now and we have built a reputation on having a focus on body confidence, positivity and building people up to accept themselves. We have highlighted the connection body positivity has to your overall mental state through acceptance, and really letting go of the thoughts you believe other people have of you. Only then can you actually start to allow yourself to be happy.

You may have seen us in H&E before with some of our previous photography projects. We’ve hosted events as part of Nudestock at Candy Farm with full body glitter, our ongoing “Positive Portraits” project features simple black and white nudes and we’ve also produced two books in our “Muddy Hoody” series which followed Chris on a very muddy and humorous naked run through the woods combatting anxiety.

To mark our 3^rd anniversary in our studio we hosted a weeklong exhibition of our photography projects portraying our positive attitude towards nudity by displaying it a natural way, in normal environments without any sexualisation. We set up our easels around the studio, each featuring images from a different project. This was our second exhibition, “Be Positive” which followed on from our hugely successful “Think Positive” exhibition last October.

Over the final weekend of our exhibition, we had a fantastic number of visitors each curious about the images on display and the work that went into producing them. The final images only show a very small glimpse of the photo shoot as most people who have participated say the experience lives on in the heads longer than the images. The most important and fascinating aspect of our exhibition was the conversations it started. Even if people had the mindset of never being able to participate in such shoots and would never dream of being naked in public, they could appreciate the positivity and confidence on display and were in awe of the people pictured. Everyone commented on the sense of fun and freedom captured in every picture. We find that it is also important to acknowledge that nudity isn’t for everyone, if someone says that they could never do that themselves, you must accept that point of view, we are all individuals after all. Many people find skydiving an exhilarating pastime, but Ginny would never contemplate jumping out a plane for fun. It’s all about the variety of life. We had plenty of conversations around the fact that we ourselves where often featured in the images (this was mostly started by friends and family), but we never expect anyone to do anything we wouldn’t do ourselves and the majority of the time we take the lead and show by example. This is often the case when it comes to preparing for a new project, we have to create test images to see what is going to work and also create images to use for advertising. We believe it is very important to put ourselves out there and to be fully immersed in what we do. This not only shows a commitment to our work but also shows that we can put our own insecurities and vulnerabilities on full display which again starts the conversation to get people involved and agreeing with our mindset. We fully participate in all our group events, mainly because it’s so much fun jumping from behind the camera and taking part. We find that humour goes along way towards acceptance too. We are all adults and have got to learn to laugh at ourselves, many times people walked into the studio and went, “ooo a bum, oh that’s your bum.” No one was disgusted or offended when faced with the nudity which is often the case in the real world away from social media and the press which constantly tell us what we should think and what should offend us. Nudity really isn’t that scary and the human body is not something to be frightened of or to hide from. We are so proud that our exhibition featured all body types across a wide range of ages with an even split of male and female.

At random times throughout our exhibition Chris would appear in a bright purple (our studio colour) secondskin bodysuit. This purchase was a result of a combination of lockdown mentality and late night ebay browsing… not a great combination for the bank balance! This purple character has become known as our studio ninja and always creates a stir when he appears and he is a fantastic conversation starter, he’s naked but not naked, faceless and practically genderless too.

Our small family business is making very large steps towards normalising nudity with a focus on acceptance. Ginny runs several fitness classes from our studio each week; these classes are all about empowering women as she adds a showgirl, burlesque twist to her cardio routines. All the time people are in our studio they are surrounded by our imagery on the walls. We have a wall dedicated to our “Positive Portraits” featuring male and female nudity, we have body paint, glitter and powderpaint nudes also scattered around. Chris runs weekly life drawing sessions from the studio which operate on a casual basis with many people just dropping in to have a go and to see what it is all about. On alternate weeks the life drawing is advertised under the heading of a “mindfulness hour” emphasising the calming nature of creativity and art. We have a chilled out, acoustic soundtrack playing and encourage conversation. We’ve also been able to give people the opportunity to model for us. This has helped people achieve an improved sense of self wellbeing and helped them with their own body confidence issues.

Our exhibitions brought all of this together and highlighted our work to an even wider audience. We are putting Grimsby on the map for body positivity and promoting naturism. We have had people travel to join in our group project work from London, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Hull and everywhere in between including many local Grimbarians. In the coming months we will be proud to have an image on display in the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull as part of their summer open exhibition. The image was taken during our honeymoon and features a rear view of both of us just wearing wellington boots and holding umbrellas. Everyone kept saying to us if you’re going to Scotland in October pack your wellies and umbrellas! We didn’t let anyone down and this image has become a feature in our own studio.

In a world dominated by social media and a constant filtered view of reality, we pride ourselves on capturing the raw, unedited version of life. Nothing is more beautiful than your natural self when you learn to accept it. People have stretchmarks and blemishes, moles and freckles, it’s what makes us us. I’m not saying we don’t embrace social media because we do, we have all the bases covered, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and we’re currently trying to get our heads around TikTok. When we do post we share our natural images and you’d be surprised how these get the best views and likes. We have openly discussed our own stories around body acceptance, and this is what drives us on. Look out for more events and exhibitions from us in the future as we continue on our body positivity for all mission.