Naked Sexy Photographer

Naked ambition: Photographer lays herself bare in nude poses on the streets of NYC

Parisian born photographer Erica Simone performs a number of everyday tasks in the buff for her new exhibition Nue York: Self-portraits of a Bare Urban Citizen
The 20 shots are part of Simone's new exhibit which opens next month at the Dash Gallery in Tribeca. She said she wanted to shoot people naked in the street doing regular things, 'not especially posing, or being naked, but doing whatever'

Erica goes to her local convenience store for a packet of cigarettes in the nude as part of the project which she got the idea for at Fashion Week two years ago

Erica said the general public were very accepting of her nudity and most were applauding and cheering while she was doing it, though admitted the subway shot was the most challenging one

Once Erica got the idea for the exhibit, she decided to step out from behind the camera and do a number of self portraits in the nude, sometimes wearing only a variety of accessories, performing mundane activities

Photographers are often said to bare their souls through their pictures.

But Parisian Erica Simone has taken this to the next level by literally laying herself bare - she has photographed herself in nothing but her birthday suit on the streets of New York.

The 25-year-old has turned doing daily routines in the city to works of art simply by removing her clothes.

And Miss Simone made the daring decision to step out from behind the camera and go au naturel in a series of self-portraits taken in and around the Big Apple.

Speaking to MailOnline she said: 'At first it was like, "Can I really do this?" I was into the idea, but I didn't totally have the [nerve] to do it - I'm not totally an exhibitionist.

'But I managed to do it on my first day of shooting in the West Village and I didn't even get arrested.

'I think that was just a combination of good timing and luck, and it is not as if I just spent the whole day walking around naked. I was fully clothed until I was ready to take the shot.'

'It's not about sex. It's crazy that it's illegal to be naked. The whole process was really liberating and it made me feel freer and more comfortable in my own skin and not be ashamed of my body.'

 In the pictures, she rides the subway, checks out library books and shovels the snow on the sidewalk outside her apartment - all in the nude.

The 20 shots are part of Simone's new exhibit Nue York: Self-Portraits of a Bare Urban Citizen, which opens next month at the Dash Gallery in Tribeca.

Miss Simone said the inspiration for the exhibition came to her during Fashion Week two years ago.

She said: 'I was sitting around thinking about fashion and what would we be if we were naked and what if we didn't have fashion to show who we were, our status, how much money we had, all these things.

'Then I got the photographic idea of shooting people naked in the street, but just doing regular things, not especially posing, or being naked, but doing whatever.'

The pretty 25-year-old said she was not sure if she herself could go through with it but  was intrigued by the challenge of staging the shots - which she took using a remote sensor - and stripping down to her birthday suit.

She said the general public were very accepting of her nudity and she did not have any bad experiences while doing it.

'Most people were laughing, smiling or applauding and cheering. They seemed OK with it,' she said. 'The most challenging one was on the subway. I had to ride the whole way from West 14th Street to the end of the line to get the right shot.

'The only person I told was the guy next to me as he had to hold my coat. But by the time some people even found out about it, I was clothed again.'

Extraordinary International Building Without Any Corners

Zaha Hadid Architects’ has completed the Galaxy Soho office, retail and entertainment complex in Beijing

The new Galaxy Soho project is a 330,000 sq m commercial complex that includes office, retail and entertainment outlets. Designed by Zaha Hadid, the project is characterized by four large organic shaped concrete domes connected by a web of fluid bridges. Encased in concentric rings of insulated aluminum cladding, windows are stepped back slightly to provide daylighting and appropriate shading. Protected courtyards at the ground level connect shoppers to all the retail, which occupies the bottom floors.

The upper floors are occupied by office space and restaurants and bars at the top, which enjoy panoramic views of the city. Inside the domes, intimate courtyards create their own interior world and skylights light the space. The project has a LEED Silver rating due in part to its use of natural daylighting and tight envelope. The 18-floor complex has already sold out all of its commercial units and is regarded as a successful project.

The Most Crispy World's Map

The Secret To Make Baby Without Making Love

How Babies are Made

Canadian photographer Patrice Laroche surely will have no trouble explaining to his kids about the birds and the bees.  During his wife Sandras pregnancy, the artist created this hilarious explanatory photo series titled “How to Make a Baby.”   The creative couple planned and carried out their project throughout the whole period of 9 months, taking pictures in the exact same settings as Sandra’s belly expanded.  The pregnancy saga of Sandra and Patrice basically denounces all the traditional cabbage and the stork stories.

The Greatest Feather Paintings

Clay Sculpture Park in China

Clay sculpture park in China

A clay sculpture park built to simulate the scene of renowned Chinese scroll painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival (清明上河图) was officially opened in Changzhuang Township, Tangshan City of north China’s Hebei Province last Friday.
Clay sculpture park in Hebei, China
The original (5.28 metre long) scroll painting by Zhang Zeduan portrayed the life of people preparing for the Qingming (tomb sweeping) Festival during the Song Dynasty (960-1729).

Rembrandt Masterpiece's Secret Revealed

 Nearly 400-year-old secret painting in Rembrandt masterpiece revealed

 Scientists may be one step closer to revealing a hidden portrait behind a 380-year-old Rembrandt painting.

The masterpiece, "Old Man in Military Costume" by Dutch painter Rembrant Harmenszoon van Rijn, resides at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Scientists had noticed the painting bears faint traces of another portrait beneath its surface. Researchers had previously probed the painting with infrared, neutron and conventional X-ray methods, but could not see the behind the top coat, largely because Rembrandt used the same paint (with the same chemical composition) for the underpainting and the final version.

New studies with more sophisticated X-ray techniques that can parse through the painting's layers give art historians hope that they may finally get to see who is depicted in the secret image.

    'Our experiments demonstrate a possibility of how to reveal much of the hidden picture.'

- Matthias Alfeld from the University of Antwerp said in a statement.

"Our experiments demonstrate a possibility of how to reveal much of the hidden picture," Matthias Alfeld from the University of Antwerp said in a statement. "Compared to other techniques, the X-ray investigation we tested is currently the best method to look underneath the original painting."

Alfeld and an international team used macro X-ray fluorescence analysis to examine a mock-up of Rembrandt's original, created by museum intern Andrea Sartorius, who used paints with the same chemical composition as those used by the Dutch master. Sartorius painted one portrait on the canvas and then an imitation of "Old Man in Military Costume" on top. [In Photos: Looking for a Hidden Painting]

When bombarded with these high-energy X-rays, light is absorbed and emitted from different pigments in different ways. The scientists targeted four elements of the paint to fluoresce, including calcium, iron, mercury and lead, and got much better impressions of the hidden painting in the mock-up than they were able to before.

"The successful completion of these preliminary investigations on the mock-up painting was an important first step," Karen Trentelman, of the Getty Conservation Institute, said in a statement. "The results of these studies will enable us determine the best possible approach to employ in our planned upcoming study of the real Rembrandt painting."

This isn't the first time scientists have delved into Rembrandt's paintings. Previous research revealed why his art possesses such calming beauty, finding the artist may have pioneered a technique that guides the viewer's gaze around a portrait, creating a special narrative and "calmer" viewing experience. Essentially, the researchers found Rembrandt painted more detail in and around the eyes of his subjects, tapping into an innate human attraction to the face.

20 Most Fascinating Prehistoric Paintings

Lascaux Caves: the prehistoric Sistine Chapel

Known as "the prehistoric Sistine Chapel," the Lascaux Caves, a cave complex in southwestern France, contain some of the most remarkable paleolithic cave paintings in the world, from at least 15,000 years ago.

The cave was discovered on 12 September 1940 by four teenagers, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas, as well as Ravidat's dog, Robot. Public access was made easier after World War II. By 1955, the carbon dioxide produced by 1,200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 in order to preserve the art.

Altamira Caves: as Picasso famously exclaimed, "after Altamira, all is decadence"

The fabulous caves of Altamira are located near Santilliana del Mar in Cantabria, Northern Spain, about 30 kms. west of Santander. As is so often the case they were discovered by chance. In 1868 a hunter by the name of Modesto Cubillas stumbled across them but they were not properly explored until 1875 by a nobleman from Santander named Marcellino Sanz de Santuola but it was his daughter, Maria de Santuola who discovered the wonderful cave paintings of Altamira in 1879. However they were of such astounding quality and so well preserved that specialists doubted their authenticity and sadly the discoverer was dead before they were officially acknowledged as genuine. At the beginning of the 20th. centuary they were finally accepted as authentic after similar remains from the stone age were discovered in the area. However the cave paintings of Altamira remain the most exceptional evidence of Magdalénian culture (between c. 16,500 and 14,000 years ago) in southern Europe.

Chauvet Caves: spectacular artwork

The Chauvet Cave or is located in the Ardèche département, southern France. It became famous in 1994 after a trio of speleologists found that its walls were richly decorated with Paleolithic artwork, that it contained the fossilized remains of many animals, including those that are now extinct, and that the floor preserved the footprints of animals and humans. The Chauvet Cave was soon regarded as one of the most significant pre-historic art sites in the world.




The cave is uncharacteristically large and the quality, quantity, and condition of the artwork found on its walls has been called spectacular. It appears to have been occupied by humans during two distinct periods: the Aurignacian and the Gravettian. Most of the artwork dates to the earlier, Aurignacian, era (30,000 to 32,000 years ago). The later Gravettian occupation, which occurred 25,000 to 27,000 years ago, left little but a child's footprint, the charred remains of ancient hearths and carbon smoke stains from torches that lit the caves.

Magura Cave: peeking into the prehistoric world

The Magura cave is in the Northwest of Bulgaria, some 180km from the capital of Sofia. Pearls of the cave are the unique paintings on stone, done in bat guano. They are multi layered and come from different epochs - The Epupaleolith, The Neolith, The Eneolith, the beginning of The Early Bronze Age. The paintings in the Magura cave represent dancing women, dancing and hunting men, disguised men, large variety of animals, suns, stars, instruments of labour, and plants. The Solar calendar from The Late Eneolith and some later additions, made during The Early Bronze age are quite accurate.



Through pictures information about religous events and feasts along with their smbols and particular personages were saved. Some of the images are very complex compositions and hint about the diversity of ideas in a world extremely rich in intellectual and spiritual aspect. The Magura drawings define its function as a temple for a long period of time - from The Neolith till The Iron age.

Cosquer Cave: an underwater cave from up to 27,000 years ago

The Cosquer cave is located in the Calanque de Morgiou near Marseille, France, not very far from Cap Morgiou. This cave, the entrance of which is located underwater nowadays, was discovered by Henri Cosquer in 1991. Today the cave can be accessed through a 175-meter long tunnel, the entrance of which is located 37 meters under sea level.




The cave contains several dozen painting and carvings dating back to Upper Paleolithic, matching two different phases of occupation of the cave: Older drawings of hand stencils and other related motifs, dating back to 27,000 BP (Gravettian); and newer drawings of signs and animal drawings dating back to 19,000 BP (Solutrean), representing both "classical" animals such as bisons, ibexes, and horses but also marine animals such as seals and what appear to be auks and jellyfish.

Font de Gaume: the best example of polychrome painting

Prehistoric people living in the Dordogne Valley first settled in the mouth of Font de Gaume around 25,000 BC. The cave mouth was inhabited at least sporadically for the next several thousand years. However, after the original prehistoric inhabitants left, the cave was forgotten until the nineteenth century when local people again began to visit the cave.


In 1901, Denis Peyrony, a school teacher from Les Eyzies, discovered the paintings inside Font de Gaume. The paintings date from around 17000 BC, during the Magdalénien period. However, many of the cave's paintings were discovered much later. The cave's most famous painting, a frieze of five bison was discovered accidentally in 1966 while scientists were cleaning the cave. Font de Gaume holds over 200 polychrome paintings and is considered the best example of polychrome painting other than Lascaux, which is now closed to the public. The paintings in Font de Gaume include depictions of more than 80 bison, approximately 40 horse depictions, and more than 20 mammoth depictions.