H&E Positive Portraits

 As you are all aware, we have always had a main focus on Body Positivity and growing self confidence with our photography projects. We had a full feature covering 4 pages, the main headline across the front page and also pictured on the content page.

H&E is the "worlds leading magazine for the clothes-free lifestyle"

We are incredibly proud of our work and to have this publication is amazing... as well as being a bit scary seeing ourselves in print. Flicking through the pages of our complimentary copy on the release date was a bit of a shock.

Below is a copy of the article in full. Feel free to comment.

All words and pictures are our own.

As soon as Ginny had experienced the freedom and confidence which comes with naturism we decided to try and incorporate this new found body positivity into our photography. Lots of people suffer with self-confidence, body issues and the related mental health problems which come from a negative body image. Journalism, TV and particularly social media portray an “ideal” image of what is perfect and should be aimed for. Most of the people we photograph have never done anything like it before and are simply just doing it for themselves. Everything we have worked on as had the number one aim of improving people’s perception of themselves by changing their mental attitude and showing that everyone is beautiful.

Our first project was “Spot the Difference” where we hired a studio with various sets and set people in a natural pose. We took two pictures, one fully clothed and one fully nude with no other changes. The aim of this was to normalise the nude putting it in a non-sexualised everyday situation. Our first event was well attended with 15 people posing individually, in couples and groups. We have repeated this a further 3 times and some people have returned every time. Lots of fun and we have produced some really great images.

Our next project saw us getting messy in our studio… with the use of lots of colourful powder paint we covered our bodies and posed in front of a white background. The powder is thrown over the body one colour at a time and builds to a full body coverage. The nature of the powder means that no two shoots are the same and are incredibly fun to do. Again we’ve done this in small groups as well as individually. The images produced are amazingly colourful and soon become people’s favourites. Because we make these shoots fun people soon forget about being naked. This is the first step to becoming more body positive by simply letting go. People also get to look at an image of themselves naked and say “I like that.”

Next we started to think what else can we cover people in highlight all our beautiful bodies. Ginny immediately thought GLITTER!!! After a few trial runs a perfect blend was created. A few test subjects were used in the studio and then a group event was planned. We have been able to cover people from head to toe in a sparkly, holographic glitter. Usually a person picks a colour and they become that colour. The effects have been amazing. We only source environmentally friendly, bio-degradable, vegan friendly glitter. In 2019 we took this event to Candy Farm Nudestock with great success. We produced some great group pictures and also posed people with tractors, hay bales and had fun with the cow catcher, basically a climbing frame. Even better that the sun came out to make our people shine.

We are especially proud of a mini project we worked on to highlight mental health issues. We found an isolated location and photographed a series of dark male nude shots. We were highlighting the internal thoughts of abandonment, loneliness and despair. Using Chris in the images to draw attention to the high levels of male suicide. We shared this across our social media attracted lots of attention and was also accepted into a local exhibition.

Ginny then wanted to find out more about the people we had met on our body positive journey and invited them to tell their stories about their relationships with their bodies. Over the course of 14 days we shared them one by one across our social media. A photograph of the person wearing just underwear with an accompanying story was published. We had stories about being people struggling with weight, disabilities, mental health worries and bullying. These are often the personal struggles which go unnoticed and hidden from public view. We are highly grateful to everyone who participated. We also had our days in the focus as we never ask anyone to do anything we won’t do ourselves.

‘Positive Portraits’ is our latest and ongoing project. After all the extravagance of the colourful and messy powder paint and glitter with have stripped things back to basics. We are photographing black and white nude images with no props or accessories. We have created a sequence of 12 poses which everyone gets to pick from or work through them all if they are comfortable. We have created this sequence to allow the person to show as much or as little as they wish. We have added this on to other body positive shoots so we slowly build up to full nude. It’s all about building the confidence in people who find nudity scary.

We are still full of ideas to progress our photography with more group events in the planning both in the studio and on location. We are looking to hold our own exhibitions as we now have a great collection of Body Positive and Naturist images.