Meet Marna, a 74-year-old photographer whose nude self-portraits are absolutely beautiful / The Huffington Post
Written by Priscilla Frank for The Huffington Post. Originally published November 24th, 2014.
“Marna Clarke is a photographer. She takes pictures of herself, mostly, and her partner Igor — some around the house and others at the beach. What makes these photographs radical to some, however, is that Marna is 74 years old.
“This project began simply when I turned 70, four years ago, and began to think of myself as getting old,” Clarke explained to The Huffington Post. “I wanted to see what ‘old’ looked like on me, so I started taking pictures of my naked body: feet, hands, torso, arms, legs, face, hair. I needed to hold pictures in my hands, not just look in the mirror for a temporary glimpse.”
Clarke’s photographs operate as quiet yet powerful rebellions against mainstream culture, a culture that writes off elderly bodies as irrelevant and unworthy. The photographer snaps simple and raw portraits of herself stripped down to her bare skin, the same skin she’s worn for years. And the results are absolutely beautiful.
“I dug up the courage to show this work to a very select group of people whom I thought would appreciate it. I received encouragement along with some complete confusion and bafflement. Not everyone is ready to look at naked bodies, much less old ones. I was wandering into some of our cultural taboos, namely the aging, their naked old bodies and death.””
To see more of Marna’s beautiful self-photography, and to read more of her story, check out the rest of the article here.
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