I had a situation befall upon me recently that caused my love for BBW women to feel unnatural. A person in my life took it upon their self to attack my choice in girls, and my relationship with that person made it something difficult to ignore. As I sat, in self hatred, in the silhouette of my computer monitor’s warm glow, I decided to see if there were any notable people who shared my affinity for cute chubby girls. To my surprise, this interview appeared. Leonard Nimoy, Spock himself, has the holy grail of interests in women of larger dimensions. The Full Body Project is an artistic approach to the BBW body.
“This current body of work is a departure for me. For a number of years, I have been producing images using the female figure. I have worked with numerous models who were professional people earning their living by posing, acting, dancing, or any combination thereof. But, as has been pointed out to me in discussions at exhibitions of my work, the people in these pictures always fell under the umbrella of a certain body type. I’ll call it a “classic” look. Always within range of the current social consensus of what is “beautiful.” In fact, that was the adjective I most often heard when my work was exhibited. The women as they appeared in my images were allotted no individual identity. They were hired and directed to help me express an idea—sometimes about sexuality, sometimes about spirituality—and usually about feminine power. But the pictures were not about them. They were illustrating a theme, a story I hoped to convey.” - Leonard Nimoy on The full Body Project
SCOTT SIMON, host:
If I’m not the first, I don’t think I’ll be the last to observe that Leonard Nimoy has boldly gone where no photographer has gone before. Mr. Nimoy has been an active and accomplished photographer for years. He’s produced an exhibit of photographs that’s just been published as a book, “The Full Body Project.”
His camera subjects are huge women, not simply plus-size models but obese – and they are photographed nude. They are not shy or self-conscious. The women are members of a group called The Fat-Bottom Revue. And, as Mr. Nimoy says, they are proud of their own skin. Indeed, they smile, laugh and often lock eyes with the camera.
Leonard Nimoy joins us now from the studios of WFCR in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Mr. Nimoy, thanks so much for being with us.
Mr. LEONARD NIMOY (Photographer, “The Full Body Project”): My pleasure, Scott. Thank you.
SIMON: You note this book for the photography teacher who once told you to do what scares you. Now, your respect for these women notwithstanding, was that part of your fascination with this?
LEONARD NIMOY: Actually, it began with an individual lady who came to me after a presentation I was doing. It was a seminar of some previous work. And she said to me you’re working with a particular body-type model, which was true at the time. She said, I’m not of that type; I’m of a different body type. Will you be interested in working with me? And she was a very, very large lady. And this was in Northern California – I have a home up there – and we invited her to our studio in the home and photographed her there.
And that was the first time I had photographed a person of that size and shape, that kind of body type, and it was scary. I was uncomfortable, nervous – my wife was there to help. I was not sure exactly how to go about it or whether I would do her justice. I didn’t know quite how to treat this figure.
And I think that’s a reflection of something that’s prevalent in our culture. I think, in general, we are sort of conditioned to see a different body type as acceptable and maybe look away when the other body type arrives. It was my first introduction of that kind of work. And when I showed some of that work, there was a lot of interest. And it led me to a new consciousness about the fact that so many people live in body types that are not the type that’s being sold by fashion models.
SIMON: For those of us who – my only practical experience with photography is to take pictures of our kids at Halloween or something. What do you mean when you talked about you didn’t know how to do it; you didn’t know how to photograph?
LEONARD NIMOY: Well, was I going to be reportorial? Was it going to be editorial? Was it going to be an art project? How should I light her? How should I present her? Should I present her full frontal nudity? Should I present her as sculpture – which is finally what I chose to do. And the photographs did come off looking like marble sculpture, and people were quite fascinated by it. I often heard the word beautiful about this very large unusual shape of a body.
SIMON: Who, in fact, are these women you photographed from the Fat-Bottom Revue?
LEONARD NIMOY: They are group of women in San Francisco that I found after I had photographed this first lady and found this interest. I decided to explore the territory and found this group, a group that was formed by a lady named Heather MacAllister, who unfortunately has passed away. She was a cancer patient, which I did not know at the time. But we – I photographed them twice – once in San Francisco and once again at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. They are women who are of a larger body type who have other professions, but who come together to do this dance revue in doing burlesque.
Heather MacAllister, who formed the group, was an anthropologist by training. And during one of our sessions, I said to her, what are you doing with your anthropological training? And she said, I’m doing this, meaning this Fat-Bottom Revue. And she went on further to say, whenever a fat person steps on stage to perform, and it’s not the butt of a joke, that’s a political statement. And I found that quite profound.
SIMON: There’s a delightful picture in there of the women dancing in a circle, and they do look like they’re having an awful lot of time. Do you remember taking that?
LEONARD NIMOY: They were. They were. They brought music with them, and when the music – when they turned on their music they started to move. I couldn’t get them to stand still.
(Soundbite of laughter)
LEONARD NIMOY: They’re very responsive to music, and it shows in the pictures. You’re right. The circle dance’s intentionally based on a Matis painting. He had a circle of dancers essentially that part was when I said – I showed them the picture, I said this is what we’re replicating here, and they did it joyfully, and it’s in the book.
