Mayhem

For this portrait series, I decided to revisit an ongoing thought. How do we value our bodies? Since there are numerous ways to explore this subject, I took the modeling world route, as it is as straightforward as it gets. Models provide their bodies to be photographed/painted for a certain rate. But what is that rate? Who determines those standards? How much is too much and when a certain amount is too small to charge?

In my search for subjects for this series, I posted a generic casting call on a popular online platform. The models that got back to me all received the same reply:

“Thanks so much for replying to my casting call and providing details. I'm still sorting between my options. Can you please tell me how you decided on your rate for nude work? Why fixed $X for a couple of hours and not more/less?”

The reactions and directions the conversations took were fascinating, to say the least, and often challenged the nonphysical working relationship between subject and photographer right from the beginning of the process. In the studio, the concept of this body of work was not revealed to the subject until the end of the shoot in order to keep the portraits as neutral as possible.

* Through the process of creating this work, all models were treated fairly and were compensated as per their request.