I created Skin Capture Exposure in 2014 – a way to capture almost all of me – it was on Tumblr but had to be removed as Tumblr decided it doesn’t meet their standards on nudity. I’ve tried to recreate it as it was, I’ve just cut and pasted the text and added the same images. I’m hoping to take similar images again now that I am 6/7 years older – [I did that in July 2021 images at At 55 ]
July 2014
Wanting to show myself naked, exposed, familiarity without contempt.
A collection of skin exposed and lines captured. There are several points to this collection of photographs – challenge, exposure, familiarisation, desensitisation, and capture.
They are photographs of me, nearly all of the outside of me, some bits of a room appear too. I am 48 and, if my family’s longevity has been passed on to me, this could well be the half-way point of my life. I wanted to challenge notions of beauty, approved body image, acceptable nudity and notions of “decency”.
Images of younger people naked commonly appear in art and in porn. Images of older people appear far less often in art and in porn as a particular kink. I want the pictures, individually, to be treated as capturing visual images of parts of me. As a collection though they have a different purpose and that purpose includes all of the writing – I want the collective of the words and the photographs to be considered as a whole.
Individual pictures can be looked at in isolation, as such they may have some artistic value on their own and, for me, many of them do. Or they may just be a snap. Very few of them are that, they have all been selected specifically from a far larger number of photographs, many of which might otherwise be considered to be better as snaps.
That is enough for now, there is more text on my intentions on the notes page. Big thanks to Jess for taking many of the photos of the back of me.
Phil Pool - Art and Protest 