Collin Allen Blog
Naked Cellphone Photos
In 2014, I created a photography show called “Naked Cellphone Photos”. The show was composed of photos taken by me of people that actively take and share nude photos online. I spent two years photographing twenty-two people. The project became much more then what I had planned. This is the base for my book “Naked Cellphone Photos”. I compiled the photographs and stories of the people in a photo book. The project took on many subjects that are common in the world today, but are not talked about, like sexting, safety in a digital world, and why people share themselves in such an open and raw way with strangers yet hide themselves in everyday life. As with the original project the book took on a new life by guiding me to new places and outlooks. The book became a completely new project with many new trials and turns. The base of the book is the photos, but the stories and the people will created a connection that I feel was needed to really understand the scope of the project.
For the base of this project I spent two years photographing and documenting people that I met through the internet. All the people I photographed actively photograph themselves and share the photos with other people on many digital platforms. In trying to show something that is very public and very private, I learned many of the issues that people overlook and often do not want to talk about. The book “Naked Cellphone Photos” allowed me to explore a subject and hopefully bring it to a wider audience.
My hope for this project is that people will be able to see the beauty in the moments that I have documented without judgement. The people in this project shared something that was very private, and I would like to share that with the world. This subject is something that everyone must deal with in the digital world and there is no one group of people that participate in taking and sharing naked photos. Most of the research that has been done on the subject has focused on younger age groups, but there is no one age, race, sex or social economic group that is involved. We must look deeper at our world.
Please feel free to email me to ask questions about this project. I am also starting the second part of the project and am now working on finding men and women to be photographed.
Naked Cellphone Photos
You can also follow the link to the Naked Cellphone Photos project