Intimate, Nude Self-Portraits of an Artist Every Year for 40 Years

By Alison Nastasi

Aug. 23, 2014

Wearing nothing but a pair of Vanity Fair Lollipop underwear, shoes, and socks, photographer Lucy Hilmer snaps a self-portrait of herself every year on her birthday (April 22). The ritual started on her 29th birthday and has continued over the past 40 years. The intimate photos, which we first spotted on Stylist, chronicle the changing of her body through age and pregnancy. Her husband, daughter, and friends accompany her in several of the pictures, mostly clothed next to the spirited photographer. Her book upcoming book Birthday & Other Suits (and a companion film) was created to “reveal how a woman who came of age before women’s lib used her camera to peel off society’s ‘pretty girl’ label and define herself from the inside out.” Hilmer, who plans to continue her series Birthday Suits for the remainder of her life, told Lens Culture: “Armed with my camera and tripod, I found a way to define myself on my own terms in the most open, vulnerable way I could.”

Photo credit: Lucy Hilmer