The Knox Student

Sophomore Andrea Hernandez, by junior Honor Beeler

Every year, Love Your Body photographers have to work with their subjects to take photos that walk a tricky line: celebrating the body without objectifying it.

Several events are planned each year to highlight Love Your Body Week. On Saturday, Feb. 16, a photo exhibition of all types of bodies will be held in the Taylor Lounge. The point of these photos is for the subjects to be photographed and to show their bodies how they please. An important part of the process is having photographers that will work well with all the people willing to expose their bodies.

“My big thing is, I want the photos to be what they [the subjects] want. I never really go in with any sort of a vision because I want their vision to drive mine,” junior Laura Pochodylo said about her approach.

This is the third year Pochodylo has worked with LYBW. She wants her pictures to be far from what is seen in advertisements and popular media. Pochodylo wanted to make sure that none of her models had submissive poses.

“The whole point of the entire event is to empower yourself and be excited about you,” she said.

Senior Kyla Tully emailed her models a list of questions to answer. Many of them were new to the experience, so she wanted to make sure they were as comfortable as possible. The questions primarily focused on their interests and comfort levels.

“I would kind of get an image of who they are,” Tully said.

This influenced her to make suggestions of her vision to shoot her subjects. If the model already knew how they wanted to be photographed, she was fine complimenting how they wanted to be seen. Tully took 50 to 100 shots of her subjects, than narrowed them down to 10 for the person to choose.

Tully is excited to see the rest of the work that will be displayed. She not only participated this year behind the camera, but in front of it too.

“[It’s] a realization of how different everyone is and how beautiful they are at the same time,” Tully said of her reaction to the event.

“I hope they see that all different body types participated,” freshman Carmen Ribaudo said.

Ribaudo has been an active member of Students Against Sexism in Society and knew about the event, which led her to want to take part in the project. Ribaudo wanted to stay away from poses. She wanted her subjects’ bodies to be fluid and not stiff.

“I would just tell people to continue, to keep moving, try not to stay in one place,” she said.

Ribaudo made sure she encouraged the people in front of the camera while taking the pictures, checking in as the shoot went on. Ribaudo focused on natural body language. She even played music in a few shots to help with movement.

“If you’re feeling natural with your body, then the environment is going to feel natural too,” she said, going on to explain that natural movement helps with the mindset of seeing a nude photo.

“I really wanted to accentuate the human body with different forms of art,” junior Honor Beeler said.

Beeler came to her subjects with specific ideas in mind, as referenced with her other work in photography. She made sure to meet with her models to know what they were comfortable doing and showing so she could adjust the project to each comfort level. Even after the shoot, she made sure the pictures still worked for her models.

“I made sure my models sat down with me and went through the photos that they felt comfortable with,” she said.

Beeler has drawn naked bodies but this was her first time photographing them. She was inspired to participate this year because she had seen the exhibit last year.

“I hope that when people view the photos they will think the same thing; people are loving their body for what it is, people are confident in themselves and wanted to do something different like that,” she said.