*Content warning: This article contains nudity*
The acclaimed photo series finally get its day in the sun in first full exhibition
It’s been more than 30 years since photographer John Crawford shot his infamous series of aerial nudes.
The overhead photos of Crawford’s ex-wife Carina Crawford lying naked in abstract scenery propelled the Napier-born photographer on to the world stage in the late 80s and again in the 2010s.
After sitting in storage for decades, the photos are now being shown together for the first time at an exhibition at Little Rosie Café in Parnell, Auckland.
“It felt like the time was right,” says Crawford. “It's very personal and this series has always been close to my heart because the model was my wife and the mother of my children.”
Aerial Nudes was shot in Taranaki between 1981 and 1987, the result of Crawford’s travels to and from commercial shoots by air.
From an early interest in abstract shapes, Crawford says he was immediately drawn to the two-dimensional forms of the landscape when seen from directly overhead.
“That perspective was quite rare at the time,” says Crawford. “Most people get to see things from an oblique view but in a helicopter you have a perfect view straight down.”
Each image was shot on 35mm colour film and composed in frame without image manipulation.
This was well before the advent of drone technology or high definition satellite photography made the overhead perspective commonplace.
“I see things in the abstract form with shapes and patterns,” says Crawford. “From a thousand feet up, everything is one flat plain and there’s no depth of focus so fence lines or pipes or curves become a lot more prominent.”
The lines formed by the interaction of natural and industrial landscapes inspired Crawford to shoot the series, but something was missing.
“I’d see the shapes and patterns, but I also wanted to show scale,” he says. “The obvious way to do that is to put a human body in there.”
Crawford says his wife Carina was keen to be involved, and soon he was shooting her distant naked body lying flat against the ground on everything from a timber yard to an airport runway.
In one of the most well-known photos from the series, Carina lies across a rail bridge with an oncoming train seeming to bear down on her through the deep green of the Taranaki bush. The train was stationery thanks to the Crawfords’ friendship with one of its drivers.
“She was pretty brave to do some of those,” remembers Crawford. “It could get pretty cold in the middle of winter. She would have probably rather been in bed.”
After scouting the locations in a small fixed-wing plane, John would coordinate with Carina to find the right position and framing for the shot.
“In Taranaki at that time there were a lot of stacks of pipes and stuff all over the place.” he says. “It just caught my eye.”
Without cell phones or any other means of communication, Carina would lie in position and wait as John flew overheard to shoot.
“The thought behind it was to show scale, but the naked form emphasised that we as human beings are infinitesimal in comparison to the landscape around us,” says Crawford.
Like the train shot, many of the aerial nudes were done with the help of the Crawfords’ friends in the community.
“I knew the train driver, I knew the air traffic controller,” he says. “Once I had a couple in the bag, I could show them what I’d done, and they would help me out.”
After the images first were released in the late 80s, international publications began to reach out to Crawford to feature them.
Then in 2012 the images went viral online, grabbing the attention of the BBC, Independent, and Daily Mail.
Nearly 10 years later, the Auckland exhibition is the first to feature all 15 images from the series.
“I got sick of them and put them in boxes for 25 years,” says Crawford. “I didn’t realise they’d last so long!”
Now that the photos are back in the spotlight, Crawford says he's glad they can finally be seen together in one exhibition.
Aerial Nudes is on now through August at Little Rosie Café in Gladstone Rs, Parnell, Auckland
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