Photographer’s Request

I received this e-mail the other day (clearly the one which turned me onto the aforementioned Kate Winslet movie) and I thought the project is an awesome one so I am posting this here along with her e-mail address for anyone to contact her if you are interested.

A couple of years ago, there was a movie out called Little Children starring Kate Winslet. I was reading a review of the movie and the writer mentioned “how brave” Kate was to show her stretch marks.

That one sentence really knocked me for a loop. It never occurred to me that people, men and women, might feel this way. Why was such a move brave? Ms. Winslet is quite lovely and I cannot imagine her feeling ashamed about anything.

So I started talking to women I knew and they started telling me their stretch mark stories. I learned from them that men of just about every age have no idea that women have them. They think that women look like the cover of the bathing suit issue of Sports Illustrated or the layouts in Playboy.

Well, yes, some women do look like that. But most don’t and that creates a problem. The real look of the vast majority of women is swept under the rug. I guess there’s nothing inherently wrong with being under a rug….if you’re a piece of dust! so, is that what we are? dust?

My vision of the project is to have all black and white photos. The subjects would wear black pants and white shirts. Each photo would have the woman’s feelings about her body/marks in text next to the photo.

I feel that presenting such a thing to a gallery would create a buzz and this topic would be out in the mainstream, even if just for a few days, where it belongs. I would present this idea to galleries in Provincetown, Cambridge and Northhamptom Massachusetts for starters. There may be locations in California that would be interested, too.

To participate, contact Jen at goldsmithphoto@comcast.net