It is strange to admit, but I did not always know how to look at nudes. Not really. I do not mean in that bashful, adolescent way we are told to feel growing up in a culture that censor’s skin while glorifying it in everything from shampoo adverts to gallery retrospectives. I mean really look, acknowledge the body not as spectacle or symbol, but as a document of being. Imperfect, un

retouched, sometimes unflattering, but honest. Honest enough that it forces you to look inward. My own project, “Echoes of the Past,” finds me contemplating the quiet narratives embedded within weathered stones and forgotten spaces, a search for traces of humanity that linger. This yearning to understand and portray the human condition finds a particularly profound and often challenging expression in the photography of the nude.

I remember the first time I saw a photograph of a naked body that did not feel sexualised or overtly posed. It was in a dog-eared library book, shoved between dusty volumes no one had touched in years. The image was black and white, soft in tone but hard in gaze. A woman, older, unapologetically wrinkled, sitting by a window. The light touched her shoulder in a way that felt almost devotional. It was not erotic. It was not performative. It was real. I did not understand why I kept returning to that page, but I know now it had to do with truth, something raw and unguarded that spoke beyond the body. That disarming intimacy stayed with me and began to rewrite the narrow ways I had been taught to see bodies, moving beyond the idea that nudes were only “art” if they were Grecian in elegance or Odalisque in gaze. This was something far more complex.

The photography of the nude, from its earliest days in the 1840s, has been a battleground of intention and feeling. Those early daguerreotypes and calotypes were often cloaked in the guise of classical art, their subjects posed to evoke Greek statues or Renaissance paintings, cautiously mimicking the established artistic traditions. An early study, a self-portrait, captured with the nascent medium’s unique textural qualities, showcases a figure, soft and vulnerable, evoking the fragility of early photography. These pioneering images walked a delicate line, striving for artistic acceptance while navigating societal sensitivities surrounding the naked body. Photographers explored both aesthetic aspiration and scientific study, for instance, some sold erotic cartes-de-visite, blurring commerce and taboo, while others used the camera to study muscle movement and emotional expression. Both approaches, however, probed the body’s form, its tension, and its truth.

As photography evolved, so did its engagement with the nude. By the late 19th century, photographers were pushing boundaries not only with artistic flourish but with scientific curiosity. Consider a sequence of frames capturing a human body in mid stride, stripped bare, less about beauty and more about the mechanics of existence. It is clinical, yes, but there is something profoundly human in its unadorned reality. This exploration of movement speaks to impermanence, a reminder that our bodies are always in flux, always becoming. The Pictorialism movement, flourishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, then embraced the idea of photography as a means of personal expression. Their nudes were often ethereal, soft edged, and suffused with a romantic sensibility, moving away from explicit anatomical detail to evoke mood and emotion. A poignant image from this period, depicting a figure in a pose of spiritual or dramatic intensity, its forms softened by a painterly effect, exemplifies how photography sought to elevate the nude from mere representation to a symbol, exploring universal human experiences through veiled suggestion and atmospheric rendering.

The modernist era, in the early to mid-20th century, brought a different kind of directness, stripping away soft focus and allegorical trappings. Photographers turned towards an unflinching examination of form, texture, and light, often transforming the body into an almost abstract landscape where curves, shadows, and highlights became sculptural elements. There is a precise attention to detail, the skin rendered with astonishing clarity, revealing every contour and plane. An iconic example of this approach highlights a figure made with incredible sharpness, its lines and volumes becoming the primary subject, almost divorcing it from its human context to focus on pure form. This approach challenges me to look closer, to find beauty in the ordinary textures of skin, muscle, and bone. Another powerful approach, rooted in Surrealism, played with the body as a site for conceptual and often unsettling transformations. An unforgettable image features a woman’s bare back, adorned with painted f-holes like a cello, blurring the boundaries between human and object, identity and artifice. These explorations challenged conventional feelings, inviting viewers to look beyond the literal and engage with deeper psychological or philosophical questions. Even more psychologically charged were images where limbs and torsos were stretched into surreal landscapes, bodies becoming geography, creating a delicious discomfort in not knowing precisely what you are seeing at first glance.

Following the Second World War, the photography of the nude expanded further, reflecting changing societal norms and a deeper engagement with issues of identity, vulnerability, and power. Photographers began to explore the body not merely as an aesthetic object, but as a complex site of personal narrative, social commentary, and emotional exposure. The seventies exploded everything. Images of bodies in the wild, in motion, in chaos, bruised, sweating, curled into themselves, were not nudes in the classical sense. An indelible photograph of a woman in a bathtub, her gaze both exhausted and defiantly present, feels like an intrusion, a direct and unvarnished glimpse into a life. It is not about the nude as an aesthetic ideal but as a testament to survival.

A stark and powerful image from this period presents two male figures, their bodies confronting the viewer with a formal elegance that belies the challenging themes of identity and desire it explores. The stark lighting and direct gaze create an almost sculptural presence, forcing an examination of form and human connection. There is an unavoidable complexity when we talk about who gets to see whom, who photographs whom, and why. That power dynamic is embedded in so much of the work, especially those created by male photographers of female subjects. It is in the set of the shoulders, the position of the hand, the way the eyes sometimes resist the lens. The intimate spaces of family life also became subjects for the nude, as seen in an intensely personal photograph capturing a mother and her children in a moment of unguarded intimacy. These images, often controversial for their depiction of childhood nudity, speak profoundly about innocence, growth, and the unbreakable bonds of family, inviting a re-evaluation of societal boundaries around the body in a domestic context.

More contemporary explorations of the nude continue to push boundaries, often integrating performance, self-portraiture, and a fierce engagement with identity. An impactful self-portrait of a woman, her body framed within a natural setting, challenges conventional beauty standards and celebrates diverse forms. Such works embrace authenticity and vulnerability, transforming the act of photographing the nude into a powerful statement of self-acceptance and defiance. Another image, of a nude figure balanced on a tree branch, surrounded by vibrant flowers, feels like a celebration of freedom, a rejection of shame. This boldness, this refusal to let the nude be confined by convention, feels increasingly radical in a world saturated with images where bodies are commodified or censored. My own photographs rarely involve nudity, not out of prudishness, but because I still have not found the language to do it right. I worry I will fail the trust. I am still learning how to see people, let alone strip them bare and not blink.

The nude in photography has consistently navigated complex terrain, the shifting line between art and pornography, the ethics of representation, and the ever-present question of the gaze. It compels us to consider who is looking, what they look for, and the power dynamics inherent in the act of seeing and being seen. It delves into universal human experiences, vulnerability, desire, shame, beauty, and the profound connection to our physical selves. This enduring genre reminds us that the human body is not merely flesh and bone, it is a landscape of experience, a canvas for expression, and a vessel for countless stories. The journey of the nude in photography reflects our evolving understanding of ourselves, our societies, and the boundless possibilities of artistic expression. It is a testament to the medium’s ability to confront, provoke, and, to reveal. In some ways, that trust feels more significant than the photograph itself.

Even now, after years of looking and creating, I find myself deeply uncomfortable with certain photographic nudes, especially when the subject is very young. That feeling, that knot in the stomach, is not a failure, it is a vital sign. Art, at its most potent, is meant to unsettle, to provoke questions, to make us feel and think beyond our immediate comfort zones. The day that sensation dulls, the day I cease to wrestle with the challenging aspects of the human form as presented through a lens, is the day I must truly worry. Indeed, I could have chosen far more explicit images for this discussion, presenting bodies with everything laid bare, yet I felt a profound discomfort in doing so. It is in those moments of unease, of questioning my own perceptions and the artist’s intent, that the most profound dialogues begin, proving that the photographic nude, in all its iterations, retains its power to hold a mirror to our deepest selves and the complexities of the world around us.

Regards

Alex