Maisie Willoughby

0:13hello um so as it's just said my name is Maisie and I'm here to talk to you about my photography exhibition girl on girl uh which exhibited this November um at mother uh the exhibition featured photograph that I've shot over the last 10 years and it was 10 girls um in various states of undress um on the opening evening I hosted a discussion um in an attempt to answer some of the key the key questions that um had arose whilst I was taking the project um and also whilst I wanted to show the project um predominantly around the mail and female gays see some lovely boobies um so it seems a bit odd um but I'm starting off this chat um with a

1:05photo of me and my two older brothers um what I've come to realize is that the similarities and differences between my brothers and I um is what helped trigger this project um being a girl was never really an issue for me um it's just that as I got older I was constantly told that my interests um were as they were because because of them um which is just simply not true um I did grow up watching films like alien Predator Terminator um films very much made for men um I'm not really sure why I was allowed to watch these considering like getting my ears pierced was like unbelievably dangerous and things like um but yeah so I grew up watching these

1:54films and absolutely adored them um probably more than my brothers I remember what my eldest brother actually cried at the scene in Total Recall where there's three boobs and um he's literally never lived it down but I was a child and like looked at him and laughed um so yeah these these films like massively influenced me um not just visually but in terms of content and genre um I began actively seeking out films that other people hadn't really seen um and I sort of enjoyed really surprising people about what I was into um it felt quite liberating to be honest not to be as people expected um so you can sort of imagine

2:46how surprised people were 10 years ago when I started shooting photos of my friends in the nude um I was studying well I was um applying at the time um to stud study my degree I needed to get together a portfolio um I was really torn between documentary photography and fashion photography um and wanted to merge the two in my portfolio um I wanted the work to sort of talk about life but also I knew I was applying for a fashion photography degree and thought that it should um be really sexy and at the time I didn't really know what was sexy than what I could see in the mags which was sort of nudity really or not nudity but

3:34definitely um a sense of sexuality so being from a small town I sort of looked to the resources Chapter 3: University available to me and started to shoot my friends in the nude um I got in to University I started at London College of fashion and um began the degree and I continued to shoot more fashion Focus uni work um but really needed an outlet um and carried on shooting what I deemed documentary photography um and continued with with the nude girls um once I'd shot a few of these girls other girls would get in Chapter 4: Documentary Photography touch um and asked to be photographed uh often stating that the

4:21reason was because I was female um and they could see that in my imagery so this really flattered me but at the same time really like aggravated me it was like why why is it okay cuz I'm female does that mean that they're less sexual does that mean that they're more genuine it sort of really confused me and um I sort of started to take more images and think about this as a question I'd always been sort of I I'd always hated Cate uh being categorized as being um go but now everyone was sort of telling me that it made my images better and it was quite confusing um my attitudes towards gender and sexuality

5:09was constantly changing and I started to look into what it meant became a bit better educated in um the female form what it meant to capture it um I became aware of the male Chapter 5: The Female Gaze gaze um and started to think whether I just was uh showing the female gays and what that meant given that I'd grown up so much surrounded by the male gays and loved it um just in case anyone like isn't aware the term was coined um by Laura mvi um in 1975 I think um and it's a Bas it's basically the way that women are portrayed in um mainstream Culture by men as objects of Desire um and that notion that she put forward I didn't necessarily disagree with um so I

6:04just thought that this year i' now shot around 30 girls um and the conversation of the female gays kept coming up um and it felt like the perfect time to exhibit um and try and attempt some of these questions that I'd really struggled with um that was easier said than done so Chapter 6: The Project first of all I am by trade I'm an art buyer at an a iing agency called widening Kennedy um I'm also a creative producer and that means that I'm always working um so this whole project had to basically fit into my spare time and I had to beg borrow steel um for the prints for the framing for the retouching like there was only minor

6:49retouching it's worth saying um only on things like if there was a hair on the lens this is all shot on film and again it's over some of these photos are 10 years old um and back then I wasn't good at archiving and some of the negs were pretty dirty so I needed to tidy things up um secondly all of the girls that I'd shot had known that the final intention would be to exhibit um but understandably 10 years later some of these women were really apprehensive about being shown in the nude um not just on a exhibition wall but possibly in the Press um and online and um one girl in particular had shared these photos when I shot her um back in Chapter 7: Body Shaming

7:36the day and had received a lot of negative body shaming she was made to feel really really negative about just having a picture of herself where you could you know see her you couldn't in fact it was this image like you could see bits and pieces but um wasn't particularly out there but she received a lot of NE negative comments um so here I'd shot about 30 girls in total and I just wanted to show 10 over the 10 years and it was just a real struggle lots of girls pulled out at the last minute and um I understand because it's a very very brave thing to do um I talked in length with a lot of the girls Chapter 8: The Final 10

8:16about what it meant to show the work um and eventually I came up with the final 10 um I too had really changed the way I shot images um the project began simply as using nudes to portray sexuality and um to try and get into a university course um but after seeing these girls who were extremely shy when they turned up um who then became really empowered and just felt amazing about their bodies by the end I felt honored to have taken these photos um and it very humbling Chapter 9: The Panel feeling being able to exhibit these um I also really wanted to reflect on the progression of how I'd shot these images

9:05and um on the evening felt it important to discuss this um I invited a panel to chat um which was made up of Alex holder who is the acting content director at L magazine UK um I onlyi gamble who uh is the founder of polyester magazine um T award who's this girl here she featured in the exhibition she's a model and YouTuber um and David Abrams who's a fashion photographer um and just invited everyone that had attended that evening to join in as we attempted to answer some of the the key questions that I'd really struggled with on the night so we answered questions such as do all women Chapter 10: Conclusion

9:51portray the female gays at all times um can a woman ever exploit herself through her own self-portrayal um when does nudity become pornographic uh should someone's personal point of view um be defined as the male gays or the female gays or can it ever be genderless um and it was really interesting to hear lots of different viewpoints um on the subject personally I don't really feel there can ever be a oniz fits all but we did come out of it feeling like the discussion was ongoing and definitely worth Ching about So yeah thank you