Photographer Ponch Hawkes shot hundreds of women naked for her new show 500 Strong. Credit: Justin McManus Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Jennifer Aniston has always been living proof that you can, in fact, get better-looking every year — and her 2008 GQ cover wearing nothing but a tie at age 40 was just one more bit of evidence (see here via Time). You can protect yourself from Granny using one of the two different types of weapons you can find in the house. But it only stops her for a while. But it's worth it. But you have to be careful because Granny hears everything and if you drop something on the floor or walking on a creaking floor she will start running to the place she heard that sound. The crew of Nude to Me wanted to “walk the walk” as they spent time at the Van Tan Club, so they stripped down to film interviews with club members. (CBC/Nude to Me) The show is part of a broader event called Flesh After Fifty, the name a quote from movie star Joan Crawford, who at that age reportedly demanded a photojournalist shoot her naked, saying “Something happens to the flesh after fifty.”You wake up in a dark room, you have a headache and it feels like someone have hit you in the head. The only apprehension from club members was how we were going to share their story. Nudists are sometimes not presented in the best light in the media; there's still a lot of stigma around nudism in general. When photographer Ponch Hawkes went looking for images of naked older women on the internet, she found acres of blank space, then a rich vein of what’s termed “granny porn”.

At the bottom of this house there is a garage. In the garage there is an old car. If you manage to start it and open the garage door you can escape that way. The program was so named after a quote from the famous Magnum agency photographer Eve Arnold, who wrote about photographing actress Joan Crawford in New York in the 1950s: “There she was nude – but sadly, something happens to flesh after 50.” Also, it was the summer of 2020 and the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. What better place to shoot a doc than outdoors and six feet apart at a secluded naturist club?I grew up with a sense of shame about my physical appearance. Now I am honouring it, appreciating it, taking care of it. Immersion in a dance and movement practice has finally enabled me to land in my skin.” Credit: Ponch Hawkes My grandmother was a spirited, independent bon vivant and I think the free-thinking, radical naturist movement is where my grandparents felt right at home. They were the original hipsters. This is the only time I have been photographed naked. So why did I opt to do this? Maybe because no one had ever asked before. Maybe to look at what six decades of use and abuse looks like in my case. Definitely to join in on this great, joyous fleshy statement about being alive.” Credit: Ponch Hawkes

Her leading man was said to be an artist who left his “conventions behind in London” and propositioned the young star to model for him. As I was taking off my clothes in the studio I felt uncomfortable, but I wanted to stand strong and proud with the other women. With the launch of the exhibition, we will explore our diversity, share ideas about identity and sense of ageing self, and how and why we now value our bodies.” Credit: Ponch Hawkes In 1963 Arbus shot a series of photographs of nudists which included images such as A y oung waitress at a nudist camp, N.J. 1963 1963, printed after 1971 (Tate AR00526) and Retired man and his wife in a nudist camp one morning, N.J. 1963 1963 (Tate AR00510). In these images, and throughout her work, the contrast between normality and abnormality is a critical theme. With her direct, unapologetic approach to her portraits she explores varieties of human physicality and identity that do not conform to traditional societal expectations. By removing the theatrical veneer of convention and portraying the couple in a manner true to their identity, Arbus challenges the viewer’s expectations of what constitutes a portrait.The composition of A husband and wife in the woods at a nudist camp, N.J. 1963 establishes tension between the everyday pose and habituated relationship of the man and woman, and their nudity. The clarity of the image and studio portrait style contrasts with their appearance and the forest setting. This tension belies the ethical question at the centre of Arbus’s photographic practice. For instance, in an article entitled ‘Notes on the Nudist Camp’, written for (but not published by) Esquire in 1966 after a visit to the Sunrise Haven Nudist Camp, Arbus noted that, ‘for many of [the nudists], their presence [at nudist camps] is the darkest secret of their lives, unsuspected by relatives, friends, and employers in the outside world, the disclosure of which might bring disgrace. Everyone is known by their first name’ (Arbus 1966, p.69). Despite this concern, the couple in the photograph appear without attempting to conceal their identities, with the man offering a smile. In her photographic practice Arbus often sought out subjects who might be considered ‘outsiders’, and got to know them before she photographed them. I post bikini and nude photos because I finally feel good in my skin,” she wrote below one nude November post. “I don’t do this for compliments or likes. (Although they are very nice indeed). I’m doing it because you see thousands of images of younger women in the same situations. That’s what you’re used to seeing. No one tells them to put their clothes on. By what standard is it ok to ogle a nude teen, but not a mature woman?” He said: “It’s going to be the best work I ever did too, look, look at that light on there, chunks of the face need fixing a bit but no hurry, we’ve got all the time in the world.”