Today I climb the mountain
There was a stage in my life when I was broken. I watched myself suffer, cry myself to sleep. I thought I wouldn’t be able to bear the pain… I didn’t want anything else. But life goes on, and I had to pick up every little piece and put myself back together. I did it carefully, little by little, with the help of an incredible woman as my guide, Paola.
I worked hard… and I grew by looking at myself in the mirror every day and recognizing the wonderful woman I am. I won’t deny that the process has been the most painful thing I’ve ever faced… but just like the photos, the result is wonderful.
I faced my demons and my shortcomings, my fears and the beliefs that limited me. Today the demons sleep at the foot of my bed.
Today I climb the mountain without hurrying. I devote myself to enjoying the landscape and looking at the immensity around me. Today I breathe deeply and eagerly.
Today I enjoy the path and take every opportunity life gives me. I live, and live myself, in every experience, however extreme.
I stand naked and unafraid… however uphill everything looks, however hard it seems, I know I’m not alone. Wonderful women hold me and encourage me; with their arms they give me warmth and offer me a love so genuine that I often think… why didn’t I meet them sooner!?
But I also understand that everything comes in its own time. And it’s now, when I’m ready and determined to receive.
Infinite thanks, Maca, Celeste and Maggi, for the complicity, the intimacy and the warmth.
To you, Pralad, all my gratitude and admiration for the opportunity, for your professionalism and for this wonderful work that I hope you all enjoy.
Alexandra
IG: @la_alexdya
APRIL 30, 2022
This session was the opportunity to begin living those aspects I decided to take on some time ago: my body, my emotions, their relationship with shared space and with other bodies.
Experiencing nudity as the construction of identity in a collective space was the core this time: the context, its influence on our bodies and the way we use it.
In this session we went back to the roots; we turned to nature, its roughness, the fluidity that defines it, staying alert to changes and therefore vulnerable. It allowed me to be present, to connect, with it and with my companions. What happens to my body, exposed to all these factors? How is my companion living it? Connection, empathy and a perspective of the other beyond physical appearance develop naturally.
And so nudity becomes a door to understanding the other. It invites us to explore the body, to feel what happens in that first contact with someone, what happens in my body, in my feelings. Our union intensifies the energy, the warmth… a single body, bigger and more powerful. You enter a journey of scents, vibrations, waves, currents… the closest thing to a beehive, completely in tune with the place where we were. The mountain and its biodiversity, the sun, the earth, the rock, the water, the fire that brings us together, the night with its darkness able to expand our space toward the sky, inspired us and gave us strength to endure a cold I’ve rarely experienced. We were part of the cycle, of a whole.
Maca
IG: @mak.sheep
I had experienced nudity, first alone and as part of a therapeutic process, part of the rebirth I went through.
After that I shared a collective nude with a group of beautiful women, in an enclosed place, with a certain control; a safe, holding space.
But over time you realize that getting naked becomes a political act. How many times do you look at yourself in the mirror, naked, without voicing a complaint about some part of your body you don’t like?
Years ago I wasn’t able to look at myself in the mirror, with or without clothes. Today it’s a political, revolutionary, liberating act. You free yourself from everything that doesn’t belong to you, from what others will say, from your fears, from your judgments.
This session is not just part of a revolution in me. Being naked in nature made me connect with mother earth, with that primitive being and instinct I carry inside. That feeling of being alive, part of a whole, feeling immense and insignificant at the same time, because I look at the stars, I see the immensity of the universe and I can’t stop thinking that we are all stardust and can’t be strangers to one another. Because we need each other, because we hold each other, because we connect.
Celeste
IG: @celeste_cl
Happiness: what does that word really mean? It changes according to the meaning each person gives it.
Recently, as I was torn about going back to school, choosing between 2 degrees, I asked a very important person in my life for advice on what to do, what to choose, and he answered: what makes you happy? And honestly, I didn’t know what to say.
There has always been a love for art, whether music, dance, theater, photography or even the culinary arts. Taking photos of people being happy, even for an instant, fulfills me; but taking photos of myself? And naked? Unthinkable, even less so 4 years ago, when my body wouldn’t have fit in a lens, people would have mocked me, and that would have meant reliving old wounds I’ve been trying to heal with needle and thread.
After my surgery I lost a great deal of weight; at some point I thought I was going to break, and that allowed me to say: “hey, what if I try nudes?”, and I did, always being careful, because people can be very hurtful with their comments, whether because you’re too thin or too fat to do that. In fact, I think that’s one of the things I hate most about certain photographers, who in a way categorize people, especially women, by their looks, and don’t know that a woman’s body in every shape is truly beautiful; you just have to know how to bring out the best in the person. Later we went uphill: the effects of the pandemic and the stress of everything, and the kilos showed. “What happened to me? When did I gain back everything I had lost?” Looking in the mirror reminded me again of the bad moments of childhood and adolescence. I started looking for ways to lose weight, to the point that my hair started falling out from so much self-pressure, until I said: Enough, no more. Let’s learn to be happy with what I have and who I am now. My body began to settle thanks to exercise, food, life. But I still had to answer: what really makes me happy? Being photographed naked is one of the most fulfilling experiences; it gives me the freedom to be me, “this is who I am”, without hang-ups, without anything else.
I admit I didn’t know Pralad, but when I was invited to take part I started looking into his work, and it gave me that feeling of “this has to be done”. I like how he has the model adapt to the surroundings while remaining part of the composition. It’s an experience I could repeat a thousand times.
I’m grateful it came at this moment, right in the process of my blossoming as a woman.
Maggie
IG: @maggie.barrales
