2016.03.21 SELF
A year ago, San Francisco photographer Anastasia Kuba decided to switch her artistic direction. The former dancer had been a boudoir photographer since 2008, but she was ready for something different. "The pictures that came out were really gorgeous, but they turned my stomach upside down because something was deeply wrong about them," Kuba tells SELF. What was wrong: Kuba felt the images didn't capture the real person in front of the camera.
So she raised money on Indiegogo for a new campaign entitled "Nothing But Light," in which she aimed to a diverse group of subjects, sans makeup, lighting, Photoshop—and clothing. She pitched the project for 60 subjects, but worried she wouldn't find that many. After posting her first request for people to pose on Facebook one night, she woke up the next morning to 60 interested people. She ended up shooting 80 for the final project.
Starting in April 2015, Kuba began hosting photo sessions in her studio to capture her subjects, devoting about three hours to each person. She says there was a mutual respect between both parties—the people could leave the project at any time and request specific snaps or all of their photos to be removed—and they could even turn the camera on Kuba, capturing her nude if they wished.
"It might not make that much sense why are people naked in the photos if you think about it on the surface, but it does," she says. "That’s them and that’s what they look like, and no one is wearing any makeup and I let people keep their jewelry on only if the jewelry was meaningful to them. But the light was natural and they weren’t posing. I wasn’t telling them what to do."
She also encouraged each subject to submit a statement to accompany their pictures, telling their story in their own words. The people pictured tell powerful stories of struggle, success, love and loss. The complete project, which is on her
website, is stunning and empowering.
"This is a body positive campaign, no doubt about it," Kuba says. "To be loved is to be known, and to be known is to be open, and you have to show yourself which is incredibly hard to do if you feel things."
