I am taking a week in June to travel through Oregon and Washington on a little pilgrimage. I’d like to connect with people who have scars and are ready to share their stories. It doesn’t matter if your scar is physical, emotional or spiritual; what I am interested in is helping people peel back the shame they’ve been covered in and experience the freedom and healing that comes with what I call “the fine art of nakedness.”

Still don’t know if you fit? Have you lost something that has affected the way you think about yourself? – a job, a limb, a breast, a marriage, a child, a reputation, a loved one, your health, your faith, your sanity? Do you feel misunderstood or judged by others? Well, maybe we could talk together and discuss if sharing your story could be a healthy way for you to move forward on your journey.

I am hoping to pay for the trip by doing family portraits along the way. If you’ve wanted some family photos and live in one of the towns I’ll be going through I’d love to have your business! What would really work great is to have friends pass the word along so that I can schedule several families at a single location and do back-to-back shoots. I’d also be happy to do personal headshots, senior portraits or other types of photography – just no weddings!

Here is my tentative schedule:

Monday, June 18 – evening – Bend/Sisters, Oregon
Tuesday, June 19 – afternoon, evening – Eugene, Oregon
Tuesday, June 19 – late evening – Dallas, Oregon
Wednesday, June 20 – morning, afternoon – Hillsboro, Oregon
Wednesday, June 20 – evening – portraits at Portland Rose/Japanese Gardens
Thursday, June 21 – morning, afternoon – downtown Portland
Thursday, June 21 – evening – Vancouver, WA
Friday, June 22 – afternoon – Tacoma, WA
Friday, June 22 – evening – Seattle, WA
Saturday, June 23 – all day, Seattle, WA
Sunday, June 24 – afternoon – Yakima, WA

So if you’d like to connect with me on this trip, or if you know of someone else who might like too, please pass the word along to them and get back to me!

It has been a while since I’ve posted a “Hmm” article, but some of these Last Name Fails really got me laughing!

Three chemo sessions out of twelve are finished. One quarter of the chemical concoctions have been drunk drip by drip into Mike’s blood stream. Listening to his doctor things are right on target with blood counts, organ functions, and overall expectations. With Mike the side effects seem pretty manageable and he has a great team of professionals, including his family, making sure he is getting the proper rest and diet that he needs.

I’m not sure why I’m at Mike’s side for these sessions, other than I want to be. I can pretend to be important as a caregiver but it would be stretching the truth to make myself seem more important than I am. I am there because it is good, and that is enough.

Cancer wards are worth hanging out in if you want to see the best part of people. I’m consistently amazed that I’ve found no pity in the eyes that greet me in the waiting room and in the elevator. These people are fighting for their lives and fighting hard.

I watched one man gingerly make his way to the nurses’ station where he was greeted by his first name and with a big smile. As he walked over near me he took the doughnut shaped pillow he was holding and positioned it carefully in the chair. He lowered himself ever so lightly onto the cushion with a few grimaces from his backside pain. As soon as he was comfortable his smile returned as did his conversation with those around him. It’s kind of hard to hide what kind of cancer you are fighting when you walk around with your doughnut pillow.

Another man walked into the room from having just completed his blood work and recognized a friend in the room. He communicated his greeting with his facial expressions and lots of hand gestures before he opened his mouth. When he did so his voice was extremely deep and raspy. “Esophageal cancer,” he explained in a voice so low that James Earl Jones would be considered a tenor in comparison. The men’s two wives picked up the conversation at that point, which was probably a pretty normal occurrence anyways.

I watched Mike go through his own discomfort yesterday. As he was getting one of the anti-nausea medications injected into his port his face started twitching and he raised himself up out of the chair, obviously feeling something very uncomfortable. The nurse responded immediately and slowed down the injection which helped the reaction subside. She told us later that the nurses call that reaction to the drug “cactus butt.” She also added that most people only feel it in their derriere and that it was strange that Mike felt it in his cranium.

“It isn’t strange at all”, I announced. “Mike, pull your head out! Quit being such a butthead!”

We all laughed, which I think is what I’m good for. Laughter is supposed to be the best medicine and maybe it cushions the chemicals being injected into his port.

One quarter of the chemo game is in the books.

Scoreboard: LIFE = 3, PITY = 0.

I mentioned in an earlier post that last November I stumbled upon a book titled, “The Scar Project” about 50 women under 35 years old who had suffered from breast cancer.  I didn’t really stumble upon the book; I was looking for it. What I actually had stumbled upon was a portrait on a professional photographers’ website that gave me pause. It was a portrait of a woman who had undergone a mastectomy of her right breast.

I made this comment underneath the picture, “Very raw and vulnerable, and still very feminine and beautiful. Thank you for sharing this.”

I think the woman is brave. I think the woman found a way to deal with shame that can come from breast cancer and its aftermath. I think the woman is a fighter. I think the woman is delicate. Of all the breasts in the world it was this pair that nurtured a new compassion in me.

I later Googled breast cancer images and found The Scar Project. The book is phenomenal, emotional and healing. When my copy came I looked again through all of the portraits but couldn’t wait to get to the back of the book where the stories were located. It is more than a documentary on breast cancer; in fact it is almost the opposite. Breast cancer is one of those big umbrella terms that envelopes a large area, but what this book shares is that each of these women’s journeys with breast cancer had been extremely personal, unique and life-changing.

What really captured my heart was not the cancer part of their journey but their recovery. Many of the women describe in their story why they decided to be a part of the project:

Paulina – Demystify the physical scars left and even celebrate them as war wounds from a heroic battle

Toni – To let others know they were not alone

Heather – To tell her story and encourage other young women to stay on top of their health

Emily – It made me feel beautiful and to redefine what beauty is

Vanesaa – “I can just be me. No covering up or masking the truth. No pretending that everything is fine. Here I am. This is me now. This is my life.”

Marcy – “I am surviving Cancer and that is my Absolute Reality.”

Gabrielle – “Maybe if my scars were viewed as art it would help me to heal.”

Jolene – I wanted my family to look at this and never forget the fight that I fought for my life.

Katie – A day came when I could stand naked in front of the mirror and not see my mutilated chest. After a few months a new normal unexpectedly arrived, skinny dipping at four in the morning, surrounded by friends, head full of hair, laughing myself horse, impervious to my scars.

Nikki – it made me feel beautiful, powerful and sexy after I thought my mastectomy had taken those feelings from me.

Tamara – I’ve always been open to telling people about my cancer experience, now I get to show them.

Sylvia – I wanted the world to know that although cancer had changed by body, I refused to let it cripple my spirit.

I began to process the people in my own life who had battled breast cancer. I’m remiss to say that I think I held back on the support that I could have offered. I could talk to a friend about a mole that he needed to have removed from his back, but talking to a woman about her breasts seemed off limits to a conservative, Christian, male, who worked as a local pastor. And though it can be good to make decisions based on modesty, and religious and cultural sensitivities, I’ve been more concerned that my lack of being able to discuss my friends’ reality only helped keep them covered in shame.

Am I holding back? Are my friends? And if we are, why? Who are we helping by keeping quiet and covered?

I’m reading a book right now called “Shame Interrupted.” It is speaking loudly to me, as are the brave stories and portraits of these breast cancer survivors.

I’ve started helping others tell their Scar Stories as well. Some of these are published on my blog, some could be published on their own websites. I’m not trying to compete with The Scar Project – their objective is to find women under 35 who have dealt with breast cancer. Volume 1 was amazing and I know they are working on the next volume. Yet I don’t want to wait until their photographer comes to my hometown to interview my friends and neighbors. I also don’t want to be limited to breast cancer, a specific age range, or any type of cancer for that matter. I want to help people share their stories of their scars whether they are physical, emotional or spiritual. I hope you will help me connect to the people who need the freedom that these women have found.

The casting call has been made. Now it is up to you.

…

I went back to the website last week where I’d found that original picture. I posted a new comment, a request to the photographer who lives in Portugal.

“Could I get permission to use this photo on a blog article about photographing people with scars? This image has really impacted me. Thank you”

He responded the following day.

“Dear Chad. You have my permission to use this photo on the blog for noble causes, such as the image conveys. Thank you for your selection.”

And then in a personal message to me included,

“The person in this fotografia is my wife.”

She was sitting at a computer at school, working with her classmates on a project. One of her friends standing behind her gave her the startling news, “Hope, your hair…, its gone in the back…”

It is one thing to be a mid-40’s male whose mop is gradually thinning into obscurity, it is quite another when you are a young lady in the 5^th grade with gorgeous tresses of hair. Hope and her mother Kate went to their family doctor to find out about the hair loss, which is called alopecia.

Alopecia areata is a common autoimmune skin disease resulting in the loss of hair on the scalp and elsewhere on the body. It usually starts with one or more small, round, smooth patches on the scalp and can progress to total scalp hair loss (alopecia totalis) or complete body hair loss (alopecia universalis).

-        National Alopecial Areata Foundation

What Hope heard from her doctor that day panicked her; she was warned that her hair could all fall out and that it probably wouldn’t grow back. “I thought, ‘Oh no! I am going to be that bald girl in the back of the classroom that no one wants to talk to.’”

Fortunately the hair loss and thinning stopped with the back of her head and then began to gradually grow back. By the start of her 6^th grade year she once again had a full head of hair and went through the school year without any other problems. Hope and Kate had been working with doctors and naturopaths to determine the triggers to this autoimmune disease so they could avoid those allergens. She went on a gluten free diet, which seemed to work.

That next summer she went to a weeklong church camp that didn’t have any menu options. Hope thought she would be okay eating the camp food and then returning to her normal regimen at home. Unfortunately her body, which now wasn’t used to any gluten in her system, reacted almost immediately. During camp her hair started falling out in little clumps. She turned to her best friend and said, “Oh crap. It’s starting again.”

By the beginning of 7^th grade she was attending school wearing a wig called a topper that makes a person’s hair look fuller. But as her hair continued to thin the wig would no longer stay in place. Hope went shopping for a full wig.

Synthetic wigs have their own hardships. They caused Hope’s scalp to itch and sweat and the wig was simply uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. She much prefers wig she has made of real hair as it doesn’t give her the same reactions and she also can style the hair. The setback with a wig made of real hair is the cost, which is around $1500.

She received encouragement from others, including her classmates, but has found it difficult to relate to others who aren’t feeling this same loss. It is one thing to imagine losing your hair as a teenage girl; it is another to actually experience it. Some people’s attempts at cheering her up fell short – “At least you don’t have cancer,” and “At least you aren’t dying.”

But Hope’s reality is that she really loved her hair. It was her favorite feature of her body and the loss she has experienced is much more significant than it might be for someone else at a different time or stage in life. One of Hope’s desires is to go to Washington D.C.  this summer for a gathering of kids with alopecia. There is both a conference for parents as well as a camp for the teenagers. She believes this will be a great opportunity for her to connect with some other girls she can truly relate with in this specific area.

Hope doesn’t come across as a victim, nor is she hesitant to talk about her hair condition. One benefit she has found is that she gets to wear different wigs to match her moods and her outfits – even pink ones. She found that costume wigs are cheaper to purchase so she now has a nice little collection of them. Her bedroom has a shelf where she displays and can style her hair pieces.

She ran into a roadblock at her school when she asked the administration if she could sometimes wear a hat. Again, wearing a wig all day was uncomfortable and distracting to Hope. But the vice principal told her and Kate that hats are against the school’s dress code and that if they made an exception for Hope they would have to make one for everybody. (This writer doesn’t think the vice principal understands the word ‘exception’ at all, and it is with great restrain that I don’t publish this administrator’s name and the name of her school.) The next day Hope came to school without a wig. Fortunately most of her classmates were supportive of her. Unfortunately her head was cold. She has now switched schools to one that is more flexible in their dress code (and where the administrators actually have souls).

Hope has found benefits – she is overall healthier much in thanks to her diet, she has learned a lot about her own inner strength and courage, and she still can eat the frosting off the top of cupcakes.

And Hope has hope. She is very careful with her diet and continues to study how to help her body heal itself. She would love to have a buzz-cut length of hair by this summer, desiring that the patches will continue to fill in. Then next year she’d like to grow some bangs again and style her hair like her favorite singer, Morgan Wolf, the lead singer of the band A Life Set Apart.

When Hope posed for the pictures in this article she wasn’t hesitant to share the nakedness of her physical condition and at the same time express the fullness of her spirit. They are some of the most beautiful pictures this photographer has ever taken.

If you would like to donate to help send Hope and Kate to the Alopecia Areata Foundation conference and camp, please click here to go to the NAAP site. They have re-posted this story and made it possible to donate directly for Hope and Kate’s participation. We would like to raise at least $2500 to pay for the conference, travel, and expenses for them. Thank you!

I grew up in Idaho.

Think of what you know of Idaho – potatoes, L shaped state, located somewhere in the Northwest, often mistaken for Iowa, western, white, Arian nations, and about as red politically as a state can be.

Then consider that I grew up in a couple of conservative churches – one during my elementary years and one during my teenage years. Both of these churches had schools which I attended. The only time I ever ventured out into the wild world of public education was during my senior year when a friend invited me to attend high school with her for a day. Thankfully I wasn’t corrupted.

I grew up not knowing anyone that was gay. Or at least I didn’t think I knew anyone that was gay. Turns out a couple of my youth leaders and one of my good friends from a Bible Quiz team happened to be homosexual. No, none of them ever abused me, hit on me, or took advantage of me when we were on overnight church excursions together.

Since I didn’t have a face to put on someone who had a same sex orientation it seemed okay to make fun of them. We created a list of non-desired labels to put on anyone who wasn’t measuring up. If you shot at the basket during PE and didn’t hit the rim, you must have a limp wrist and thus be a fag. If you didn’t have a date to homecoming then most likely you should go with one of the other boys. If you were different than most you must be gay.

I did know of one gay man in Boise. He was a black man, which was rare for these parts, was flamingly gay, homeless, and dressed as a woman. He had a reputation in the grocery store where I worked. According to accepted tradition Jimmy Jive had walked into the downtown location of our grocery chain and demanded to see the assistant manager. Jimmy made a scene when he wouldn’t be seen and yelled for all to hear that he was pregnant with the assistant manager’s baby. Police came and Jimmy was taken to the hospital where was examined and found to be ‘pregnant’ with a large pickle. We would howl with laughter as we shared this story back and forth making the legend more spectacular than what the reality was. Another local grocery store had a similar story only it was a different manager and a different vegetable.

I ran into Jimmy once. Almost literally. It was a school day but I had a doctor’s appointment downtown. I had a Honda civic that wouldn’t start easily so I always had my brother give the car a big push so we could jump start it. If I was driving alone I would park on an incline so that I could get it started by rolling downhill and popping the clutch. It was a winter day and there was lots of snow and slush on the ground. I had injured my right foot playing basketball and was in a brace. I was on the way to my asthma doctor because I was having trouble breathing. As I was nearing the doctor’s office I made a left turn and a pedestrian, without looking, walked into the intersection right in front of me without looking. I slammed on my brakes so as not to hit her and my car stalled right there. I looked up at the woman who then raised her head to look at me. It was Jimmy. He raised both hands at me and flipped me two birds. I was so angry, especially knowing I couldn’t get my car started by myself. I opened up the car door and shoved my hand under the front seat and yelled, “WHERE IS MY F*ING GUN?!” Jimmy lifted his skirts and ran like hell down the nearby alley. I fell back into my car laughing. When I got back to the school from my doctor’s office I told my schoolmates about running into Jimmy Jive and what I had so brilliantly done to scare the shit out of him. I was legend.

There was no gun. There was no weapon under my seat. At least, not yet.

Not much later I was in a local park and found a bat that had been left by a local softball team. The barrel had been hollowed out and filled with lead. It was a practice bat, meant to be used by the next batter to help him get ready to face the pitcher by swinging a much heavier object. Finders keepers; loosers weepers. I decided that the bat was mine. I put it behind my seat and would pull it out to show to my friends. “What is it?” they asked.

“It’s my Fag Bat,” I would tell them.

Selah (pause and think about that)

…

We used to laugh when I’d talk about my Fag Bat. Now it horrifies me that I’d think that was even remotely funny.

It shames me to admit that I had a weapon in my vehicle that I purported was for the purpose of using the next time I ran into a gay man.

…

That last I heard about Jimmy Jive, someone had bought him a one way ticket out of town. Most likely it was the manager from Boise’s newest grocery store chain.

As for my bats, my dad, a very loving,  non-violent man, took all of my wooden baseball bats, cut them in half, put them on a lathe, and made beautiful mallets of out them for his woodshop. He never told me what he did with the lead-filled bat, but it is no longer in my vehicle. It is no longer a weapon. I am no longer antagonistic to gay men.

…

I had dinner with one of my close friends last night who happens to be gay. We were discussing my journey a bit and I found myself discussing my single gay friends, my married gay friends, my friends who have recently decided not to hide their same sex orientation, and even a heterosexual friend who has pretended to be gay for a year (more on him to come).

I guess the point to this post, besides me being naked in the sharing, is to say I now have faces to the labels I used to use as cruel jokes. If you use these words around me now I’ll probably get quiet and introspective because I’ve can hear myself in you. If I continue to grow and be brave, I’ll politely ask you to stop.

…

I know this isn’t the easiest topic, especially if you grew up like me.

I’m indebted this week to author Scott McKnight and his article about the difference between “Right and Good.” In it he describes two stories where Jesus interacts with people with dubious backgrounds.

The first is when Jesus goes to the house of a Pharisee named Simon (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus came under scrutiny for his interaction with the prostitute who came into Simon’s house and washed Jesus’ feet. If Jesus had stuck to what was right, by religion’s standards, he wouldn’t have let her touch him at all; he would have just sent her away. Instead Jesus goes after the religious leader and exposes Simon for not following the letter of the law. In terms of the woman kneeling in front of him, Jesus chose to be good, rather than being right.

Simon was incorrect on thinking being right was the same as being good.

In the second story Jesus has interaction with a Samaritan woman (John 4). If he’d have stuck to what was right, as his disciples begged him to do, he wouldn’t have had anything to do with the foreign woman who obviously had a loose lifestyle and an improper religion. Instead Jesus showed compassion to the woman in front of him and does what is good – he loves her.

This concept is a tough dilemma for those whose religious beliefs are surrounded by the walls of a specific church structure, denomination or religion. They are always at odds (as you will see if you read Scott’s blog article) on figuring out who to let into the church and who to show the door to. I’m grateful for the freedom these days of not feeling the pressure to measure up to any specific organization’s concept of what is right and instead be more like Jesus and simply treat people with goodness and mercy.

This is also how I interpret the political battle going on over marriage and equality rights. I think North Carolina got it wrong with their fear-based marriage amendment while trying to be right. Listening to the preacher from N.C. who said he thinks we should go back to prosecuting gay people makes me think he is just like Simon the Pharisee whose empty practices Jesus would expose.

Religion is based on law, rules, definitions and labels. It requires people to choose sides, to ridicule, draw lines and persecute.

Jesus chose to live a different life altogether. He calls us to a different journey.

“Hey Chad, lay down your bat and follow me.”

Selah (pause and think about that)

Cancers are not ever good, but I guess some can be better to have than others. Where Mike’s chemo treatment is more like an insurance policy to make sure all the margins around his removed tumor are healthy other people are taking chemo to shrink tumors that are still in their body. I looked around the waiting room of people wondering why everyone was there. Each of them has a unique story and is pursuing a journey of recovery as best as they and their doctors can figure out.

Mike looks really good. His color is better; his blood count is better; his wavy hair will probably stay attached to his thick skull. Others in the room don’t look so good and their stories read like Stephen King novels where you pray for your favorite characters to survive.

The story Mike was most interested in yesterday wasn’t his own. While he sat at one end of Boise getting chemicals pumped into him, a sweet child that was named after him was in the hospital across town having an operation on her liver. Her cancer and her treatments make everyone that have heard the details feel heavy. It makes Mike call his own infusions “chemo lite.”

We always laugh when we are together, but there was tension yesterday too. Mike held up the tube running into his body and said that he felt like he was tethered to the chair when all he really wanted to do was get up and go to the other hospital and sit at that family’s side. His ever present smile faded and his bright eyes brimmed with tears feeling not his own suffering but that of Michaella’s. He didn’t have his head bowed or his eyes closed, but I recognized his posture as one of prayer. I didn’t raise my camera to catch the emotion because it felt holy; so we just waited there.

When the drops stopped falling the tether was removed and Mike quickly got himself across town. He was running down the hallway as they were pushing Michaella into her room. She was free of the ventilator and already asking if she could eat. Better yet the surgeons were giddy. They only had to remove 10% of her liver when they had planned on up to 50%. And if the lab results are favorable the two lung surgeries she had scheduled for this week won’t need to happen either.

By the end of the night Mike was spent. He sat in my living room surrounded by his friends drinking up other stories of God’s beauty, and occasionally feeding us a morsel of truth to chew on.

It was a good day of communion, infused with grace.

Yesterday was round two of chemo for Mike.

“Don’t cover up my stretch marks,” the pregnant lady told me, “I’ve earned every one of them.”

In a world of Photoshopped perfection I haven’t had that many people ask me not to touch up their images. Usually it is relief to the high school students that I am better at getting rid of pimples in the post processing of their senior portraits than Proactive is on their actual face.

I don’t have any issue using software to smooth out some wrinkles or soften away some pores. I can add a touch of color to the lips and even make someone’s teeth a Pepsident white again. Of course this usually has to do with the purpose of the photos – if the image is being used to help promote an idea or a person than of course you want the image to be as spot on as it can be, just without any spots.

Other people use photography to come to terms with how things really are. They don’t want special effects; they are trying to deal with their reality.

A friend of mine recently had her second baby. She has had six months to see how her body would respond to having her belly swelled to the size of a prize winning watermelon at the county fair. She hasn’t been too pleased with the results. She faithfully started working out and losing the baby weight, but it didn’t melt off as easy as it had made its way on. That and the fact that she has some stretch marks that appear to be here for the long run and some saggy skin under her belly button the like of which will probably not be featured on the cover of Shape magazine.

Instead of staying discouraged she decided to invite others into her challenge- she started a blog. I was so impressed with her vulnerability and told her so. In response she wrote me this:

“I actually had the thought it might be kinda cool to do a few pictures with the stretch marks and imperfections, but have my kids in the pictures with me. Then every time I see those pictures and the stretch marks, I would be reminded of the blessings that I have because of my scars.”

This week we took those pictures.

In my estimation, but more importantly in her and her husband’s, the stretch marks are a sacrifice worthy of the joy she has born. Twice.

In preparing for the photo shoot I discovered that this is a pretty common struggle for moms. While some just choose to stop wearing bikinis and other belly-baring outfits, some have pretty fearlessly put their abs on the line, or should I say, online. A website called The Shape of a Mother is a safe place for women to go and discuss their post-pregnancy bodies. Many of them post pictures too.

If you beat yourself up about your scarred belly, sagging breasts, cesarean scars or other changes you have experienced since pregnancy this might be a good resource for you. Please note that women are sharing naked pictures of themselves on this site, not as exploitive, but as a means of connecting together. Still the site is Not Safe For Work (well, not safe for most workplaces, as for mine I found it while I was working and I’m not going to fire myself for it).

We are getting ready to celebrate Mother’s Day. I hope that my friend’s journey, her pictures and her vulnerability, helps some of you mom’s out there struggling with your body image to honor and celebrate the stretching you have gone through in birthing all of humanity.

Saying thank you is not a stretch for us. Moms are beautiful!

Have you been able to find any value in your life’s scars? Contact me if you have an idea for a story or photo shoot.

For years my mom has heard the cruel judgments of callous men when she viewed her face in a mirror or photograph. I’ve been praying that God would silence those words and reveal to my mom how He views her – how I view her.

Her journey of grace has come to a beautiful place of acceptance. When she heard that her church was hosting an art show with the theme of Overcoming, she asked me to help write her story and take a new portrait.

It was my pleasure to participate with her.

~ Chad Estes
Starry Night Media

My father was an alcoholic my entire childhood. My mother had health issues her whole life.

When her doctors told us she was dying of pancreatic cancer my father broke down and asked God to heal my mom; in turn dad promised God that he would stop drinking. God healed mom and he also took away the alcoholism. Dad never drank again. My mom lived until she was 88 years old.

I grew up too fast and had to be the adult to my parents.

As an adult I’ve learned to be a child of God’s.

My two sisters died at childbirth and I was raised as a lonely, only child.

Yet I have lifelong sisters that walk this life’s journey with me and talk with me on the phone every day.

My boyfriend and I were in a head-on collision in his Volkswagen Beetle in the summer of 1963. I broke my wrist and we both broke our noses.

 He married me the following summer and we’ve been together nearly 48 years.

I was diagnosed with diabetes at age 13 and had daily injections of insulin. Because of the diabetes my doctor was concerned about my health if I ever got pregnant.

After my first son was born my insulin level changed and I went down from injections to daily pills. During my next pregnancy I became hypoglycemic, the reverse of diabetes, and when my second son was born my insulin leveled out to normal. I have been free from diabetes for over 40 years.

The death of dreams and financial strain brought a crisis to our seven-year marriage.

It was through this dark time that we turned to God for his guidance. We have never looked back and His dreams have become our dreams.

We wanted to adopt a baby girl, but this was not fulfilled the way we thought it would be.

Instead our home has been open to many kids through the years who needed a place to live and to heal.

I was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma brain tumor when I was 41. I lost the hearing to my left ear, some facial paralysis, eye trouble, loss of balance, and short term memory problems, and short term memory problems (Ha!). Though I was so glad my life was spared my heart was broken by the rejection I received from the doctors I worked for, as they wouldn’t let me come back to work because of my facial paralysis.

Yet a whole new area of ministry opened up for me with other people who were recovering from brain tumors themselves.

I had separate surgeries to remove my gall bladder and appendix. I also had a full hysterectomy.

My son told me this was an expensive way to lose a couple of extra pounds.

A couple of years after the brain tumor I was in a serious car wreck that left me with five broken ribs and a broken scapula, a broken neck and a serious brain concussion.

Again, the fact that my life was spared was nothing short of a miracle.

I’ve had two back surgeries, a plate added to my wrist, resection of the occipital nerve in my neck, and more doctors’ office visits and MRIs than I’d like to remember.

Though I’ve had to deal with many kinds of pain and disappointment, I’ve learned not to live as a victim.

My last hospital visit, in January 2012, was for a risky, four-level neck surgery needed to repair vertebrae C3-C7.

This freed me from 24 years of constant pressure headaches brought on from my brain tumor surgery. I am excited for what tomorrow will bring. 

My body, though broken, is beautiful.

I am an overcomer!

~ Judi Estes

I am a photographer and an artist and I really admire the genre of fine art nudes – they are all about shades and tones, lines and curves, light and dark, and highlights and shadows. Fine art nudes are a far cry from pornography (though I know they still aren’t for everybody) and can be a beautiful way to celebrate God’s capstone of creation.

I am also a minister, ordained and everything. And yes, I’d rather perform the wedding ceremony than take the wedding pictures. Someone else can figure out how to get Aunt Gertrude and the four year old ring bearer to smile at the camera at the same time. Yet one of the amazing things I am discovering as I’ve dove into photography and storytelling fulltime is that my camera has become a ministry tool.

In November I stumbled upon a book titled, “The Scar Project” about 50 women under 35 years old who had suffered from breast cancer. It is a hauntingly, beautiful documentary that illustrates how individual and personal breast cancer is; not something that is so easily wrapped up with a pink ribbon. The book has become a very helpful tool for women who have breast cancer. It also won a Pulitzer Prize.

This got me thinking about the different scars we carry as individuals and how much more powerful they could be if we could gracefully expose them. My hope is that through my writing and my photography that I can help people put a voice to their stories when they may not have been able to find the words or images on their own.

The Fine Art of Nakedness is about being open and vulnerable and choosing to expose rather than cover up. My journey with this started with an artist friend of mine who was going to be painting a self-portrait of herself dancing. I asked her if I could photograph the process and she agreed, later telling me that it was the first time she had ever let anyone into her work space when she was painting so personal. Before paint was put on canvas she removed her socks and shoes. The picture I took of her naked feet, covered in paint, captured a story of healing as those same feet had been bound in casts and braces when she was crippled as a child. Now they are unbound. Now they dance!

My mother approached me to shoot a new portrait of her although she feared how her nerve damage from a brain tumor surgery would make her facial features sag. She overcame the fear and has a story of her life on display with a beautiful portrait that makes her (and others) cry for all the good reasons.

For another woman it was about shedding the strong things she normally uses as her defenses and instead wearing some thick, pink, boxing gloves, realizing that it is the softness in her life that needs to seep up to the surface.

This journey has included photographing the nakedness of a teenage girl’s head that used to be full of beautiful hair but has recently suffered allergies that made it all fall out. This young woman bravely took off her wigs and her hats and posed for a couple of the most beautiful pictures I have ever taken. You can read her story here.

For some subjects  it has involved peeling off the shame from their x-spouse and taking new portraits to fill old frames that show that life and family still move on.

For others it has included physical nakedness for the sake of seeing themselves through another set of lenses when their self-worth has so been wrapped up in their perception of their body image. These aren’t boudoir photos for their husbands or boyfriends; they are just a gentle gift for themselves when they needed to find healing and acceptance in their own skin.

Sometimes I’ll have a daring idea to ask a friend to pose for me. Last week I approached a beautician to let me take pictures of her morning ritual as she gets ready for work. This means she is letting me take pictures of her before her makeup has been put on or her hair has been done up. This, I’m sure, is a stretch for her as I’ve never seen her look anything than porcelain doll perfect.

I have another friend who has taken flak for not getting her grief in order after she lost a very close friend. She came to me with an idea of a photo shoot that is meaningful, personal, and goes to some of the very core of her pain.

Another friend dared to allow me into the room as she was giving birth. She offered up her modesty in an effort to capture a treasured moment for her, her husband, and someday, a story for their child. Her bravery resulted in some amazing photos, if I do say so myself.

All of this openness and vulnerability has started something deep in my soul and I’m pursuing it with cautious abandonment. I could tell I’m serious about this journey with an experience that happened this weekend. At the Robie Creek race I positioned myself at the finish line and looked for runners whose expressions told a story about their race. One of the women I captured looked like she had just jogged around the corner, not the 13.1 grueling miles of this half marathon. She looked as if she was a fitness model. Turns out, she is.

We connected on Facebook. She liked my photo and I like how she looks in it. I suggested that we should work together and she asked me about my forte.

Now any normal, red-blooded, American male photographer would have responded that he was a fitness, swimsuit or glamour photographer. But when I sat down yesterday to respond to her I opened up about my story-telling passion. Instead of asking if I could take shots of her abs I asked her if she would open up to me about any insecurities she has about herself and her body while in her profession. In the long run I think I have a better chance of capturing a memorable photo of her soul than her tan lines.

I almost felt stupid hitting the send button, but then again it was an example of my own nakedness in not pretending to be something that I’m not and being excited about what is stirring inside me.

She didn’t keep me in suspense very long. Not only was she open to my idea but she shared her heart of starting a program for girls and women about body issues and health. She sees her profession as a door to help others, not just make magazine covers.

Nakedness really is a fine art. This life  is a better journey when we travel together in vulnerability. I think it is freeing and more fulfilling.

If you have ideas about this path, please share them with me. If you feel stirred, but don’t know what it looks like, then let’s talk. Perhaps as you share your story the creative images will come. I’d love to collaborate with you!

P.S. and if you want to pose for fine art nudes, I won’t turn you down for those either.