If
someone had told me, ten years ago, that I would be baring my nude
body for the camera, I would have told them they were crazy. I never
liked getting my picture taken and at 5 feet 5 inches, I am nowhere
near model material. I didn’t inherit my mom’s hourglass figure,
and I’ve always hated my stomach (despite 20 years of various workout
routines, it has never been flat). It didn’t matter how many boyfriends
I had or how many people thought I was beautiful. Getting naked
was never pretty. My nude body attitude was due for change.
It all started two years ago on a trip to Los Angeles. I had just
arrived at my friend Tina’s apartment and was admiring her new bedroom
furniture when a series of nude prints on the wall caught my eye.
I remember being mesmerized by the sexy curves of the anonymous
black and white photographs. Draped in lace and satin, they were
all shot in shadows, adding a marvelous air of mystery to the woman
they immortalized.
“Wow, these are awesome!” I gushed. “Where did you get these, Tina?”
“They’re me,” she said quietly, as my eyes did a double take.
I just couldn’t believe it. Tina is 100% Italian, and like most
Italian women (myself included), she was blessed with wide hips.
But these photographs gave no indication of any physical imperfections
at all. They highlighted her womanly curves, her tiny waist, the
sexy shape of her breasts. It was amazing and the images stayed
with me. As soon as I returned to New York, I made an appointment
with Marie-Claire Montanari, the photographer behind Tina’s transformation,
hoping she could work some of her magic on me.
Marie-Claire, a tall, elegant Frenchwoman in her early fifties,
has been creating museum-quality art nudes of women for over fourteen
years.
“I don’t work with models,” Marie-Claire explains. “I shoot everyday
women and make them models for two hours.”
During my consultation at Marie-Claire’s New York studio, I pored
over dozens of nudes before agreeing to my own session. The women
in Marie-Claire’s photographs come in all shapes and sizes. They
range in age from 25 to 60. Their bodies are not all Playboy perfect;
they have their share of figure flaws. But Marie-Claire has a gift
for exposing their beauty.
“Every woman has something they don’t like about their body,” she
admits. “But I believe there’s something beautiful about every woman.”
Marie-Claire’s romantic black and white creations are proof. As
I admired her work, Marie-Claire told me a different story about
the woman behind each photograph. One 40-something mother complained
of a big butt (I didn’t think it was big at all). A 20-something
student was flat-chested (but her legs were Betty Grable gorgeous).
One woman was anorexic (Marie-Claire made her childlike figure look
voluptuous). By the end of our meeting, I was sold.
©
1998 Marie-Claire Montanari
My shoot took place at Marie-Claire’s East Village apartment two
weeks later. Her instructions for the session were specific: To
prevent any unwanted body marks, I was to wear no bra, no tight
clothes, and no underwear on my way to the shoot. The session would
run anywhere from one and a half to two hours, during which time
I would be completely at Marie-Claire’s disposal, and completely
nude. The thought excited me, but it scared me too.
Marie-Claire’s studio is actually her living room — sunny and open.
Six tall windows, three of them without curtains, surround a makeshift
modeling area. As I entered the room, I noticed a woman hanging
laundry outside a neighboring apartment. I pretended not to notice
and dropped my sun dress to the floor.
“What do you mean you are fat?” Marie-Claire scoffed. “You have
wonderful curves...a woman is supposed to be curvy.”
Easy for her to say. It was 3:15 p.m. and the sun was streaming
through every naked window. I started wishing I looked more like
Kate Moss. And I wished I had skipped that power bar on my way over.
Marie-Claire sensed my uneasiness. She propped me up in a far corner
of the room, away from any potential Peeping Toms. She told me to
turn my body slightly to the left, and stretch my arms upwards.
The flickering shadows cast by the mid afternoon sun became my new
outfit.
For the first half hour or so, I felt uncomfortable. It was strange
to be naked in front of a stranger — stranger still that she thought
I looked good. But with each new pose, my inhibitions melted away.
I folded my arms and draped them across my face. I arched my back
and stretched upwards in a graceful arc. Soon I grew more comfortable
in my nude body. I imagined that I was home alone in my apartment,
doing my morning stretches or lying lazily on my bed. I was totally
unaware of the camera.
“Marvelous! Wonderful! Don’t move!” Marie-Claire’s lilting, soft-spoken
commands drifted through the air like a soothing mantra. I felt
like an actor being directed in a play. With each click of the shutter,
a new pose was in the works.
Eventually, I became less aware of my nudity and more aware that
modeling was hard work. Some poses seemed to last for hours, and
I had the cramps to prove it. I balanced one knee on a lace-covered
stand for nearly five minutes, as my muscles burned. I was told
to “Stretch, stretch, stretch!” until my abdomen screamed in protest.
Two hours and five rolls of film later, I was exhausted and nearly
delirious with hunger. I was no longer jealous of models, super
or not.
Now I had the excruciating job of waiting for the first set of proofs.
I had no idea what to expect. Would I like the “nude me”? Or would
the familiar self-loathing return?
At our third meeting, Marie-Claire presented me with five contact
sheets — nearly 200 photographs. They were no bigger than a postage
stamp and I needed a magnifying glass to see each one. I didn’t
always like what I saw.
“All my clients have the same reaction,” Marie-Claire assured me.
“It’s the shock of seeing themselves in the best and worst lights.”
Marie-Claire was right. A bulge here or a bit of cellulite there,
and a shot was quickly banished to the “reject” pile. Only the ones
that left me looking like a Goddess would do. To my surprise, there
were plenty of those.
“Is this really me?” I mused. The woman in the photographs looked
unfamiliar. Curvaceous but captivating. Sexy. Where did that round
tummy go? After carefully examining the photographs, thirty of them
were delegated to the “good” pile. From there, I narrowed my final
selections down to five. Marie-Claire transformed these into matted,
5 x 7-inch prints.
Several weeks later, when I went to pick up my nudes, I felt the
same way I did when I saw Tina’s photographs — I could hardly say
a word. The prints were more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.
I held a private exhibition in my home to a select group of female
friends a few days later. Their reactions (except for Tina’s) were
all the same. They thought it was incredibly gutsy of me to have
my nudes done, but they were horrified at the thought of doing it
themselves. I don’t know why. My “nude attitude” has never been
better. Now, when I catch a glimpse of my naked body in the mirror,
I can finally see the beauty that’s been there all along.
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