Leonard Nimoy's Fat Photographs

Great to have him on board! Of course he remembers a time when women didn't have to starve themselves to be considered beautiful.

Trekkies, FWIW, are among the most size-neutral folks out there. Don't know why, but it's nice to see.

Those are some sexy chicks.

One of the ladies has a body shaped exactly like mine, same size and everything. And she looks fabulous! Thank god for people who can see beauty in what the rest of the world sees as imperfect.

it never ceases to amaze me - the amazing amount of variation in the human form. All are beautiful, all are utterly normal. I love it!

Here I was expecting slightly chubby women, ya know completely normal women who are fat by fashion standards... glad to see I was wrong. I was so shocked to see a woman my size and shape naked on my computer screen that I just sorta stared for a moment. Bravo, Spock! Or, is he not Spock?

GirlyGirl and lomaran--that was my reaction, too! One of those women has a body that could almost be mine, and she looks *great*! I love Leonard Nemoy now.

one of those women is Heather MacAllister, she is the founder of the Venus Group, a social and support network for large women, and is also known as RevaLucian, founder of Big Burlesque/Fat-Bottom Revue, a performance group of fat artist/activists. She's pretty amazing!!! we are lucky to have her!

When I look at pictures like this it makes me cry. It makes me both joyous and sad. Overjoyed at the sheer beauty of the female body and sad for all the years lost not appreciating the beauty of my own body. If as a young woman I has seen beautiful images such as these on a regular basis my life and I am sure the lives of countless others would have been entirely different. Leonard I love you!

azkoala, I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes, I am upset over how much time I have wasted hating my body; the body that has always been there for me and that I have spent so many years abusing. Leonard Nimoy, we applaud you.

Leonard Nimoy has often seen the beauty that others were too prejudiced or dense to recognize, and these inspiring images furnish yet another example..and, ahem, he is hot at 73 too!:))) fatthought

Yet another reason to love Leonard Nemoy! I can't get enough of this man. Thank you, Leonard. Words can't express the gratitude I feel towards you.

yeah, I always thought he was a sexy bugger too.

Three cheers for Mr Nimoy! Those photos are great and I hope he has more like them in his book. I hope it will be coming out soon. I'd be willling to eat beans and rice for a couple of months just so I can buy it.

All I can say is WOW! These women are just beautiful. Kudos to the photographer.

Leonard Nimoy is without a doubt the coolest man alive in my opinion!

even though him singing isnt very good, but its great to see another male who loves the curviest female form..

His photography is beautiful! I LOVED "the egg project." I also love how he included some of the shots from the full body project in his collection of "classic nudes" - not marginalizing these women as part of a "freak show." Really beautiful stuff.

Hmmm That name "Heather McAllister" sounds familiar as does Venus Group. *scratches head* Someone must have mentioned it to me before. Oh well. I loved the photos. It seems like Mr Nimoy is a man of more than one talent.

These pictures give me the chills. They look amazing. I thought I recognized my friend Heather in them. She's a regular at my dance aerobics classes here on Friday nights and also an inspiration in many ways. Three cheers, Leonard. And gooooo Heather! You look awesome.

You know, I keep coming back to look at these photographs, and one word applies: envy. Now, I am not fat - I'm 5'5" and weight between 130 and 135. But I don't feel as comfortable in my own skin as I should. I look at those women strutting, posing, laughing, and I feel real envy towards them. There they are, posing for a man (!) knowing that the whole world will be able to see them naked (!!) and they are LOVING it. Oh, to be that free! To be that comfortable and beautiful in your body - I truly envy them.

Maybe they feel comfortable because they are mature women who feel no need to be anything other than what they really are.

I agree with the envy part. I want to get to the point where I totally accept my body when I look at it too. Instead I still cringe when I see a photo of myself. I wonder what it really takes to get there, I want it so bad I can taste it. btw, I read somewhere that Heather is battling ovarian cancer. I wonder if her doctors are blaming her fat. a recent visit with my gyn told me that he is inclined to think that I will get very sick one day from my fat. I'm so tired of defending my fatness. I so want to know that freedom too.

I hope that's not true about Heather, that would be awful. But keep in mind the following rejoinders for dealing with doctors who give you the "ovarian cancer scare": 1) Gilda Radner battled to stay thin all her life, and it didn't prevent *her* from getting ovarian cancer. 2) But isn't it true that if there's no family history of the disease, your chances of getting it are less than 2 percent? 3) But doctor, isn't it the other way around, that sudden weight gain can be a marker for the disease? (Laura Nyro, may she rest in peace, was finally convinced to see a doctor after friends noticed that she had gained a lot of weight very quickly, and by the time her cancer was diagnosed it was stage IV.) I hate all that cancer scare bullshit. Grumble, grumble, grumble...

Also Madelyn Kahn died of ovarian and she was skinny her whole life. I can name any number of thin women, famous and not, that got breast cancer, but it comes down to the fact that there is still such a prejudice and doctors just love to blame something, fat is such an easy target to blame. The actress that played the Nanny, Ingrid Bergman, plenty of thin women had breast cancer. Didn't Nancy Reagan have it too? Why am I always surprised about a thin woman getting sick? Because the doctors always say that my fat is a health risk. My mother in law has been painfully thin her whole life and today she just has to sit down crooked and she breaks something (she's only 68!). So there it is. But they still manage to convince me that my fat will do me in somehow. well, someday thing will, that's for sure cos we all die, fat or thin!

Hi there! Heather MacAllister here, aka Revalucian. I am the founder and artistic director of Big Burlesque and the Fat-Bottom Revue. I want to briefly set the record straight/comment on a few things re: the Nimoy photos and other subjects brought up here: 1. Thank You to everyone who was moved by the pictures and wrote about it. That is why we did it, really. And I was very clear w/Leonard Nimoy about our fat liberation perspective and message, and I'm thrilled he's sending that out there to the mainstream press. 2. Me and the other models fight the same fat prejudice that you do. We get scared and struggle w/self-acceptance and self-love just like you. Just want you to know that "freedom is not free"; the freedom you see us enjoying is the result of constand hard work and eternal vigilance against the "tyranny of slenderness". 3. We are proud of our shape-diverse cast! I bet each woman who wrote that "one of those models has the same shape as me" is writing about a different model! Fat, and fat beauty, comes in many shapes, as you know, and now the world can see that. You don't have to have big breasts (though they are lovely) or a traditionally "feminine" shape (fabulous though that is) to be a beautiful woman. 4. Yes, I am currently in treatment for ovarian cancer, and yes, it's awful. What would be more awful would be if my work as a fat activist and Burlesque dancer were eclipsed by the prurient interest in my illness on the part of total strangers. I'm not in the closet about my cancer fight, but I don't make mention of it to the press. If you are a personal friend or have a personal interest in my well-being, thank you! and contact me off-list; I can put you on my "Lovetroopers" list, which will keep you pretty much up-to-date on my medical latest news. Thanks for caring and if you want more info on Big Burlesque, check us at www.bigburlesque.com. 5. The doctors are NOT blaming my fat, which is good for me for obvious reasons and good for them b/c I am ready with a blistering critique of such malpractice bullsh*t at any time if necessary. If you have ovarian cancer and are getting that b.s. from your doc, let me know and I will try to help you out. Thanks Paul, I've been hearing about BFB for a long time and I'm glad to finally come visit! XXXL, Heather MacAllister

Best of luck, Heather, and thanks for sharing with us. You are an inspiration to the fat activist community.

Just for the record: "The Nanny," Fran Drescher, battled uterine cancer, not breast cancer.

Oh, and one more thing: there is no book currently planned on the Maximum Beauty theme. He is considering that as a future project, but not at this time. And contrary to some reports, it is not "kinky", and none of his books have been "kinky". Unless images of women as divinity and fat women as...women are considered kinky. Thanks again for the kind words and encouragment!

My sister sent me this quote from a newspaper (it appeared with a small picture of Nimoy): Leonard Nimoy on the depiction of overweight women in Kirstie Alley's 'Fat Actress.' "It's deplorable, dishonest, contrived. My models are proud people." Nimoy is mounting a photography exhibit this summer that's based on plus-sized women."

These photographs are beautiful; I hope very much to get Leonard's book sometime soon. I said to my hubbie, "can you imagine Shatner taking pictures like this if he were a photographer?" I think not. It is so poignant to read women say, "that woman has a body like mine, wow!" I did the same thing, looking at these photos, thinking how my breasts were much like one of the model's----we are so used to seeing women's bodies of only one type that we can easily believe no one else has a body like our own. And if one isolates oneself, that misconception can intensify. Photos like this really help "de-freakify" my body----they help me accept that my body is part of a natural, broad range of human variation.

Bravo, Kudos and three cheers to Leonard Nimoy on these particular pictures. They are as much fine art as the are brave recoginition, for this culture, that beauty comes in all forms. The ring dance and the three standing women are allusions to two famous paintings, A late work by Matisse and a classic renaissance icon of the three fates. It is wonderful to see how multi-facted Leonard Nimoy is; perhaps he wasn't acting on S.T. and was the smartest man in the room/'bridge'. ;)

As I looked at Nimoy's stunning photography, it occurred to me that the only time we ever see photos of fat women in the media is when they show those headless midriff shots to drive home exactly how fat our nation is getting in those obesity crisis stories.

Kudos, Nimoy. Kudos.

Nimoy was on The Colbert Report last night. I just saw the repeat.

(For those who don't watch Colbert, this describes the character he plays on his comedic news show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_%28character%29 )

Nimoy is great. And I think Colbert gets it. I really liked this and only wish they weren't so rushed...

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=156265

Thanks for sharing that link. It was nice to hear Mr. Nimoy talk about the reasons behind making the book. He's my hero!