The Nu Project
Thank you for being here. The Nu Project is a series of honest nudes of normal women from all over the world. The project began in 2005 and has stayed true to the original vision: no professional models, minimal makeup and no glamour. The focus of the project has been and continues to be the subjects and their personalities, spaces, insecurities and quirks.
To date, over 100 women across North and South America have participated in the project. Without their courage, confidence and trust, none of this would have been possible. We are so thankful for their willingness to open their homes to us.
If you’d like to get involved as a contributor to our fine art book you can find the information to the right. If you’d like to sign up for a shoot please visit the participation page for more information.
Thank you to the over 1,800 women who signed up to be part of our shooting in Brazil. We only have 1 or 2 session left and they are in the city of Recife. If you know anyone in Recife or Olinda please encourage them to sign up.
Thank you!
Matt + Katy
Thank you to all of the women who signed up to be participants in The Nu Project shoots in Brazil, November, 2012. We’ve now collected all of the information for this round of shooting but if you’d like to participate at a later date please fill out the participation form. We’ll be sending out the email shortly!
Thank you,
Matt and Katy
Thank you to all of the women in Brazil who have volunteered for the project. Based on the inquiries we received, we’ve chosen 4 cities for shoots: São Paulo, Rio, Recife, and Salvador. For those of you in those cities that have signed up please look for a followup email in the next few weeks.
To all of the women outside of those cities who showed interest – thank you. We promise this won’t be the last trip we take to Brazil.
Beijos,
Matt + Katy
Your images are so honest; and for me- insightful. I’m so thankful for having been able to be a part in creating this. I can’t begin to articulate what they mean to me, which is going to make writing about this a bitch. So… in the spirit of that old photography adage, ‘an image speaks a thousand words’, I will only use a few…
This is when I lived in Minneapolis
It was a cold Tuesday morning
I was thirty years old
This space was my home
These were the things I owned, and some still do
These were the things I was creating
… and the thoughts I was thinking
The Nu Project is one that evolves how we view and love bodies, women, and the spaces they create. The photographs reveal the empowering possibilities held in re-understanding the nature of beauty. We are reminded that our everyday lives and bodies, the seemingly mundane and uninteresting parts of ourselves–are meaningful.
The Nu Project was such an amazing experience. Actually taking the pictures was incredible. I was nervous to open myself up like that to someone I had just met, but was pleasantly surprised when the nervousness quickly faded and the confidence of “this is who I am, and this is my body” took over. Seeing the finished pictures up on the website, I am honored to be alongside all of the beautiful women.
There are a few that make me flinch, but there are also some that I’m absolutely in love with… and I think it’s honest to have both of them up, because it’s accurate. Thank you. I’m amazed by how much my body fluctuates in short periods of time, how fundamentally stress affects my physiology. Even so… that some of the images are really, really lovely helps me remind myself to be compassionate toward my body’s struggles to find equilibrium, to process emotions and conditions it doesn’t get much reprieve from.
My first thought when seeing them was “Why did I let someone take my picture so early in the morning?” There is no candy coating in those pictures. Some make me cringe, some are absolutely beautiful and they are all, all me. As a female I am probably more critical of myself then anyone else will ever be. This is why humans invented clothes, well that, and the potential for frostbite.
This issue of beauty, the body, and seeing yourself objectively vs. your own perception is something that means more to me than perhaps the average person because of the problems I’ve had with body dysmorphic disorder, a fancy medical way of saying you just can’t see yourself rationally or the way others see you. For me, having a “middleman” of sorts, in this case, the camera, gives me a bit of a reality check. I was a bit awestruck by the photos because that’s just not the way I see myself. I think most people are so used to seeing the “final product”; the airbrushed, photoshopped versions of photography that their view of what they should look like standing in front of a mirror is completely distorted. Maybe if everyone had the chance to get some fine art shots taken, maybe we’d all be a little happier with ourselves.