The beauty myth

As Ric Woods sees it, if you want to find out what someone is really like, ask them to remove their clothes.

For the past decade, Woods has photographed police officers and psychiatrists, body builders and explosives salespeople, and many others besides -“ all naked.

The experience has yielded some intriguing insights into personalities and society.

The hardest people to photograph are people who rely a lot on their looks, Woods says.

Some people who are what you’d call -˜beautiful’ are polished and -¦ some know if they’ve got a best side. They know if they stand they look better than when they sit.

Whereas if I talk to some -˜everyday’ people, they’re much more in tune with the emotion of what’s going on.

Woods, 54, started naked photography in the late 1990s after painting nudes for some years. One day he took a photograph of a subject he was preparing to paint and was impressed by the result.

Since then, the Newcastle-based photographer has shot over 100 naked subjects. This month he will show some of that work at his debut Sydney exhibition, naked -¦ there is no normal , during the Mardi Gras festival.

Woods approaches people who catch his eye -“ whether because of certain looks, particular mannerisms or even striking tattoos -“ and then sets about convincing them to sit.

A lot of people will sit once they see my work because they see how many different people [there are] and they think, -˜I fit here. I’m like him, I’m like her,’ Woods explains.

Most people, I believe, whether they’re being photographed or not, just want to be accepted. We just want to be who we are without people having to make a judgment.

I guess it’s an acceptance and it’s very freeing for these people.

The themes of the exhibition’s photographs range from a lesbian couple pictured alongside an empty pram to a classic shot of a muscled man, and a woman wearing a lampshade.

The image of the female couple is a reflection on gay and lesbian parenting, prompted by a documentary Woods saw on the subject.

It was just the whole idea of how difficult it is for gay people to become parents, he says.

The muscular man and the woman wearing the lampshade both had a point to make about conventional definitions of beauty.

This guy works really hard at maintaining his physique and is not on any sort of drugs, Woods explains.

But when I was talking to him, [we talked about how] we generalise about somebody who has a good figure possibly being on steroids.

We got into the idea of there being problems being very -˜attractive’ or very -˜unattractive’.

As for the lampshade, Some women can feel if they’re not what you’d call -˜mainstream’ beautiful then they become invisible, Woods says.

Woods decided to hold his exhibition in Sydney during Mardi Gras because many of his subjects are gay or lesbian and this is a great time to appeal to a more international audience.

At the same time, he hopes the gay community sees something of itself in the show.

We tend to distance ourselves from people, he says. If we know that this is just us looking at us, and that we all fit and that we’re all accepted, I think we’ll all go fantastically.

Naked -¦ there is no normal is on at GIG Gallery, 70A Glebe Point Rd, Glebe, from 26 February to 11 March. More information is at Ric Woods’ website.