Back in 2017, Marcos Alberti’s The O Project took on the taboo of women masturbating.
I mean, the fact it’s a taboo anyway is absurd but the Brazilian photographer aimed to break down the barriers of ‘female sexual well-being’.
The four-part photo series showed a mix of women from liberal and conservative countries, taken before, during and after reaching their climax.
Alberti did say it was a bit of a struggle to get subjects to agree to participate, given the intimacy of the photoshoot.
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Having had roughly 2,000 women sign up for The O Project, they only ended up with 22 after more information was shared.
However, the way the photos were actually taken, was far more private and perhaps less intimate in a way than you might think. In fact, even Alberti couldn’t actually see what was going on.
So, to reach their moment of climax, each women used a personal massager.
And to protect their privacy, the photos were simply taken from the waist up.
But this was also the only thing in view all together.
A behind-the-scenes video shows Alberti sitting behind a black curtain with his camera.
Then, the lens poked through a small hole, with the women sitting on the other side – totally hidden from view.
As they looked straight into the camera, they also had a cloth and something to lean on in front of them, further concealing them from below the waist.
“It was very important to me to get to know them,” Alberti explained, “and get to know them to make them comfortable and trust me as a photographer.”
As the women arrived at the studio, he would ‘explain the whole experience’ and how the camera and lighting were set up.
The photographer praised the ‘enormous courage’ of the women who took part, as a very safe and private environment was set up for them as they pleased themselves.
The set up
Alberti told LADbible that he rented a 'small, intimate studio' and 'built a private set-up' to construct the shoot.
"There was a panel with a small opening where I placed the camera, directed only at the participant’s face," he said. "The women were seated behind a table and covered with fabric, so I couldn’t see anything beyond their facial expressions. I didn’t actually 'watch' what was happening. I could only see their faces. Before each session, I carefully explained how everything would work and made it very clear that I wouldn’t interfere at any point.
"My role was purely observational, I was there to capture authentic moments, not to direct them. We would start with a simple portrait of them looking directly into the camera.
"Then I asked them to choose a song or artist they liked, and from that point on, they were free to do whatever they wanted."
Why did he do The O Project?
Alberti explained to Indy100 that he was inspired to take things further after his famous 2016 piece. 3 Glasses Later saw the changing mood and facial expressions of his subjects after a few glasses of wine.
“I really love to capture real expressions of people, so after the wine project, I wanted to go a step forward, and capture more intimacy expression,” he said.
“Expression that has never been capture with this naturality before, not what you see in television and internet. Real expression.”
And explaining how he came up with the idea for The O Project, Alberti told LADbible: "Usually, when we see a woman experiencing orgasm, it’s either in a real-life situation or through explicit content.
"In both cases, there is a shared sexual experience between the subject and the viewer. What I did here was remove that layer completely.
"I isolated the physical and emotional expressions, focusing only on the face, turning something typically seen as sexual into something observational, almost scientific, but still deeply human."
Topics: Art, Sex and Relationships
Jess Battison