“For a long time, I’ve been ashamed of my oddness and my fragility. I’ve always been a very emotional person in contact with his “feminine” part, and since I was a little kid society taught me that showing it was a symptom of weakness. Plus, I’ve always liked strange stuff or so people used to say. I’ve felt weak and out of place growing up, probably because I come from a very little religious village in the middle of Italy. Sex was a sin. Being strange was a sin. Being myself was it as well. It wasn’t written anywhere, but I could feel it on my skin. People’s eyes wandering on me in silence were actually telling me so much. They would whisper to my ears all the time, letting me know that I should hate myself just for existing, and I did. I hated my desires, I hated my body.
I started this journey that helped me love my queerness and my fragility, and photography played a huge part in this process. I began with nude photography by mistake in 2015, with some friends, and naturally, it started becoming therapeutic. I wanted to represent other’s queerness and bodies to own mines. I started finding models on Grindr, chat with them and then eventually grab a coffee. The story behind the person is very important to me and helps me generate the visual I’m going to create. Trough my photographic process it’s significant that the person can actually express herself and her queerness: it could be through objects, movements or emotions. Another aim I had shooting these photos was to desexualize the nude body: tenderness, empathy and a sense of freedom are what I’d rather produce in the viewers’ minds. Nakedness means so much more than sex.
I like to think of my shootings as “happenings”: I don’t like it to prepare them, I just prefer things to find their way at the moment. I prepare the location, which usually is very simple, while I speak with the model and he/she/them shows me the objects and the clothes he/she/them brought. I really think this “performance” part is very important in my work because it better shows emotions, connections, and instincts.”
by Fabio Le Fanu
Models: Juan | Luthfi Darwis | Vincent Sachot | Lady Eboshi | Mathias | Valery | Edgar Sebastien | Etienne | Alexis
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