For some time now, I have wanted to photograph people who are labelled 'fat' as judged by today's society. I wanted to get to know their feelings about their bodies and how they would behave in front of the camera lens without any clothes on.

In this series I transposed the old masters' inspirational works into a modern context. Larger-than-life models of both sexes unashamedly shed their clothes and posed for me in the nude. I placed them individually in a scene with appropriate props and asked them to pose in ways that would show off their shape naturally and enhance their beauty. I simulated soft candle- and moon-light to recreate that seen in the old masters' paintings.

The way my models held themselves and behaved when naked and being photographed showed me the strength of their individual personalities and their self-confidence. They accept that their bodies are as nature intended them to be. They are honest to themselves in a world all too often dominated by manipulated beauty.