Body in Mind : Galleries 2

Superbeauty: Alіyаh Lоpеz

We've said a lot about super female beauty over the years but these days it's getting harder and harder to find new examples of it to show you what we mean. Happily we've found some of this rarest of delights for you, superbeauty, possessed by Alіyаh Lоpеz. We're proud to have a set of superb images of her created by photographer Mіkе Jоnеs.

Rеgυlаr Bоdy in Mind readers know what we mean by the term 'superbeauty', and Alіyаh Lоpеz is a perfect illustration of it. But for the rest of you, the word 'superbeauty' is a term we have coined based on the origins of the word 'supermodel'. At one time, 'supermodels' were known simply as 'models'. Then several incredibly beautiful and successful models came along, all around the same time, and changed that. These women were the prettiest creatures that had ever walked the earth - they were bigger, taller, curvier, happier, had longer hair, bigger breasts, sexier walks, and more confidence than any women who had come before. Before them, models had simply made a living, but these women became huge celebrities in their own right, and made fortunes to match their fame. They made modeling, and thus female beauty itself, respectable in its own right. These amazing women became known as supermodels, and they made beauty a good thing.

Unfortunately, the world was not quite ready for such beauty, and a beauty backlash occurred that sent women's fashion into one of its ugliest periods ever, and forced supermodels off of the fashion runways to look for work elsewhere. Nonetheless, most of the supermodels made successes of themselves and are still around today, and include such beauty legends as Cіndy Crаwfоrd, Clаυdіа Schіffеr, and Ellе Mаcphеrsоn. However, today the word supermodel has lost all of its original meaning, and is used to describe all models, regardless of their beauty. And the women who would have become supermodels but for the beauty backlash, are forced into pornography or obscurity. In fact, porn is the only industry that seems interested in employing beauties of this calibre on a consistent basis.

Porn stars like Tеrа Pаtrіck, Jеnnа Jаmеsоn, and Devon prove that the kind of beauty 'supermodel' is meant to mean is still around. But we think it deserves to be recognized as the pro-women, pro-beauty, pro-value thing that it is. We believe it deserves a name. So we call it 'superbeauty', which seems appropriate since it did what nothing before it could: it rescued all women who share their beauty with us from the stigma of immorality.

Alіyаh Lоpеz is a superbeauty. And if the world ever learns to really appreciate female beauty as the glorious thing it is, she will surely become a supermodel. That beomes perfectly clear in the photos of master cameraman Mіkе Jоnеs, whom we have to thank for bringing her beauty to light. Supermodels may be gone, but superbeauty lives on at Body in Mind.

Who knows, maybe supermodels - with their original meaning - will make a comeback. Superbeauties like Aliyah, and photographers like Mіkе Jоnеs, make us hope so.

Mеmbеr Tеstіmоnіаl

I love your site. Can't say that enough. Very tastefully done. I've been a huge fan of Alіyаh Lоpеz for several years now and Mike did great work with her. Any chance of getting a few more pictures of her posted with the cowboy hat? I also loved the pictures of Kinga and Summer. Two beautiful women. Again. Thank you.

Very respectfully, Willard

(Willard is a Body in Mind member in the U.S. Navy who may be shipping out soon to prepare for potential war in the Mid-east. Our inestimable respect and gratitude go with him.)

Thе Bеаυty of Nature is the Beauty of Women

Ever wonder why we think of nature as a woman?

Master photographer Kеn Bаrtlе is one of those reasons.

One of the most common and popular settings for the beauty of the female form is nature herself. Since ancient times, man has populated the trees, streams, waterfalls, and meadows of his world with goddesses, nymphs and she-spirits.

Kеn Bаrtlе has caught them on film.

Like nature, the female form seems inexhaustable, infinite in complexity and full of surprising delights. It catches one's eye like the sun on a cloudy day, like any undiscovered country it seduces even the saltiest sailor, it blows one's troubles away as effortlessly as any playful breeze, it calms one like the surface of a still pond, a pond which on closer inspection dances with life both on the surface and under it. And naked, ahhh naked, female beauty is as timelessly, perfectly and ingeniously formed as rock sculpture, soft but hard, lithe yet unyielding, pretty and heroic, as deep as bottomless ocean ravines, as majestic as the ponderous towers of mountains, and as promising as the first morning.

One never tires of the beauty of nature, as one never tires of the beauty of woman. Perhaps this is why nature itself is thought of as a she, a mother, a woman, a female: Mоthеr Eаrth, Mоthеr Nаtυrе, Mоthеr Cоυntry, and so on.

It is hard to tell which is the mother and which the child in the images of Kеn Bаrtlе.

Female beauty has always been the main muse of even the most acetic artists. The great Spanish poets were fond of comparing the properties of the world to those of the female body, and it's easy to see why. Salmon colored mare's tales wafting over a cerulean sky remind one of a woman's hair playing softly on her sun-kissed cheek, sand dunes jutt out of the desert like a reclining nude, and female beauty itself meanders in and out of the bodies and faces of the women in your life like a stream winding through time.

Kеn Bаrtlе knows them all.

Like nature, the female form seems inexhaustable. But also like nature, it does not yield its secrets easily. Thus it has remained one of the most enduring mysteries known to man. It takes a special kind of man, a beauty explorer, or a beauty scientist to capture those moments when a woman's beauty rises to challenge and harmonize with the beauty of nature.

Kеn Bаrtlе touches these harmonies with deft flutist's fingers.

We cross the most dangerous continents, navigate salt-scorched seas and scale frozen slivers of mountains all for the beauty of a woman - not the other way around. In fact, the beauty of woman is the only thing known by man to rival the beauty of nature herself.

But female beauty always wins. In fact, in the photos of Kеn Bаrtlе, as in life, we see that the beauty of nature is the beauty of women.

Breaking the Bеаυty Bаrrіеr

Sometimes we get so busy defending beauty these days that we're afraid we neglect the real mission of Body in Mind, which is to demonstrate and celebrate the power of female beauty - especially the kind of beauty and inspiration that happens when you mix female beauty with the human mind. With this feature we hope to make up for some of our neglect.

Female beauty and the human mind are the two greatest powers at man's disposal, and their union can eventually bring the whole of human existence into the light of a shining new era, an era in which the free mind is worshipped more than its greatest enemy today: environmentalism; and an era when female beauty's power to inspire that mind is revered more than its greatest enemy today: feminism.

We are told so often these days that the mind and female beauty are a danger to everyday life that we never make the effort to imagine and enjoy what happens when they are both actually let lose to move us as and where they will. We are so often told that human beings are scum or viruses, that we do not trust ourselves to play freely with such potent possessions as intelligence and sexuality. We decry every new invention as a doomsday devise, and wonder why irrationality is on the rise. We openly declare the depraved nature of admiring beauty, and wonder why such depictions of beauty as we do see are becoming more and more depraved.

Okay, occasionally we see people win the excruciating battle for a new idea and it proves to be the great boon its inventors promised us, only to discover that the reason the idea was hated was not because it posed a threat, but because it was an idea, plain and simple, hated by people who hate all ideas, period. And yes, in the realm of beauty, we occasionally see women attain the right to public toplessness for women, only to discover that the reason women do not go topless all the time is not because it's against the law, but because they are ashamed of their bodies, and afraid of how others will think of them.

This is not the way it is supposed to be; this is not the way mankind will survive; and this is not how we see things here at Body in MInd. Female beauty is meant to make men think, to aspire to greatness and accomplishment, to inspire them to create and protect their highest values - skill, art, wealth, grandeur, reason, character, love.

Today's newest gallery is lamentably small, but represents something very great indeed: an intellectual and aesthetic departure from the dismal views man has held of the mind and female beauty for most of his history, and a peek into a world where man has never been, but might reach one day if he is lucky, or rather, if he is smart, and starts valuing female beauty for it's real virtue: its power to make us fully human in the best ways, ways we've barely dared imagine or explore.

This gallery dares. In fact, we think this gallery is so important that we've made the medium resolution version available to everyone. Our members - the lucky ducks - will be able to see the hi-res versions. As you will see it is an awkward gallery, awkward in the way baby animals are, but also like baby animals, full of life, exuberance, and the unfailing energy of a life wanting desparately to be lived, but not quite knowing even how to walk. It's a gallery in which young men hone their talents to perform what only human beings can do, doing it in the presence of a lovely, topless young woman who is completely at home being the unselfconscious foil against which these young men strain to achieve and excell, and by whose beauty they are rewarded, for trying, and for succeeding.

We're all used to seeing sexuality depicted with greater and greater explicitness. Yawn. Today we will see something far more exciting. Today, we break the beauty barrier, and we do it by throwing the human mind, purpose, and morality into the mix!

A Mоrаl Nаtυrе

As the discoverer of the causal connection bewteen female beauty and morality, I am still surprised at how often I re-discover it. If a woman fits into our personal vision and feelings about the way the world should be, or is at its best, then we find her beautiful.

This is what beauty is. And it is precisely this mixture, this combination of female sexuality and morality, that makes the images of Wаltеr Bоsqυе so beautiful. In his work, we see female sexuality fitting perfectly into natural settings (sometimes literally!). Putting a nude female figure into a natural setting is perhaps the most obvious and popular way to unite morality and female sexuality - and in so doing create female beauty. This is because, for many people, nature is the first and last word on the way things should be. 'Nature', for them, is just another word for 'morality'. For instance, we often hear references to nature used as moral praise or condemnation. "It's not natural!", some screech in moral rejection to human cloning - or - "It's perfectly natural!", others beam with moral pride from inside their nudist colony walls.

The truth is: we use nature as a substitute for morality all the time, and to many, it IS morality. Thus it acts in the same way that any man-made code of morality does when mixed with female sexuality, i.e., it creates female beauty. This is what led to the Body in Mind equation: morality + sexuality = beauty. In this, our latest gallery, we discover another: Women + Wаltеr Bоsqυе = Beauty.

Enjoy.

A Woman of the World

Many nude models often have their own favourite poses and attitudes that they tend to repeat from photoshoot to photoshoot. They often calculate these poses to have the greatest sexual effect on the men they know are looking at them. This kind of modeling is not what interests us at Body in Mind. We are interested in art, which may sound lofty and abstract to some, but is actually the exact opposite. Art is the recreation of reality the way we want it to be - the way it could be and should be, right here on earth, right now. Thus, because we at Body in Mind are trying to bring about a world that loves self-possessed, happily nude women, we find the most beauty not in pictures of women trying to be sexy, but in images that give us a chance to, say, go for an imaginary walk through a forest with a lady who is completely at ease without a shirt on, or to follow a girl through the mountains as she happily splashes in a stream nude. The images of Vlаdіmіr Kоpylоv creates this world for us now, a world where there is no conceivable reason for a beautiful woman to cover herself. We are proud to be able to display in our members galleries this first series from Kopylov here at Body in Mind. It features an especially pretty, mysterious, playful, and carefree Russian girl whom we wish didn't live quite so far away. She is exactly the kind of model we love.

Chick with a Knife

Like most men lately, I think, I welcome the slow striptease that the modern woman is performing on the public stage. Nudity is becoming more common and more accepted, both in the media, and in our daily lives. Clothing has become transparent and more revealing than ever before. Toplessness has been legalized in parts of the world in civilized societies for the first time since ancient Egypt.

Yet there are those who dislike these changes, and those who fail miserably to appreciate their significance. Thе Chіck With a Knife is here to set them straight. Since I was about 7 I've been fascinated by the image of a beautiful topless outlaw chick, good-hearted, even a little slutty seeming, but deadly serious about getting the respect she deserves.

You can read more about the Knіfе Chіck here. Or get an eyeful of her in the latest BiM gallery.

A Satyr and his Nymphs

I once had a model with whom I had a very unusual relationship. She was very quiet, yet unusually honest, and unafraid within herself. I admired her beauty of course, but I also deeply admired her self-assurance. Over the period of a couple weeks, we had several meetings of an entirely non-sexual nature in preparation for a photoshoot. As one of these meetings came to a close, she asked if I would mind stepping out of the room while she changed. She was planning to go out that night. I told her I'd honestly rather stay and watch her get undressed. Without batting an eye she said simply, okay, and without a trace of self-consciousness proceeded to strip naked and then casually dressed herself for her night out. I was thrilled, with my own honesty with her, with her unquestioning trust in my character, and with the rewarding sight of her remarkable beauty.

It never occurred to me at the time that the right man could make a career of exactly this kind of unusually rare intimacy between a man and a woman who are not lovers. Internationally renowned photographer Pеttеr Hеgrе is that man.

Awаrdеd Intеrnаtіоnаl Erоtіc Phоtоgrаphеr of the Year, Petter is a rare an unusual kind of image maker, a man who lives his art, a man of almost legendary prowess when it comes to getting beautiful young models to open up and share themselves and their beauty with him. I believe Petter is in reality a living Satyr, the mythological half-man, half-goat of the Greeks, sexually irresistable to women, infinitely playful and endlessly yet innocently corruptive, always able to show women, and the rest of us mortals that it's always fun - and good - to merge sexuality with the mysterious profundity of being.

We are proud to have a gallery of some of Petter's best images of erotic intimacy this month.

Something extra from Vіlnіs Vіtоlіns

One of the most surprising discoveries we've made at Body in Mind is the fact that female beauty is not a product of nature, but of Man.

I'm not talking about purely physical attributes here, I'm talking about Beauty, blow-you-away, can't-look-away, better-watch-where-you're-walking kind of beauty - the kind that attracts you from accross the room or haunts you across years. Beauty with a capital 'B'. This kind of beauty is strictly man-made, and woman-made.

Now, many will tell you that they love images of female beauty that don't try to do anything with the model, but just let her 'natural' beauty come through. We disagree completely. There is no such thing as natural female beauty, any more than there is any such thing as natural romance, natural sex, or natural love. It is only when the human mind becomes involved that any of these wonderful things becomes possible. They are some of Man's greatest inventions! Without the mind, women would still be only the slightly less hairy versions of their male Cro-Magnon counterparts - not very pretty I'm afraid.

Without the mind there would be no clothing, no photography, no sexual freedom, no nude models, and no time to enjoy Beauty. This is why we like the images of Vіlnіs Vіtоlіns so much, the latest photographer to join Body in Mind. His gorgeous images of breathtaking color and lovely, spirited ladies, create a rare but inspiring sense of purpose in beautiful women, in their beauty, and in our enjoyment of them. By making an extra effort to improve and build upon the beauty of his models, Vitolins is teaching us that female beauty is important in and of itself, important to strive for, to create, to admire, to revere, to incorporate into our lives. And the beauty of his images, perceivable only by those who think, is a most welcome reward for doing so.

Vitolins is of our school: he believes female beauty is important, important enough to justify all human attempts to maximize it. We are thrilled to discover an artist who believes art must be made and not found, and that an artist's job is not to point, but to create - a man who recognizes the role of the mind in the beauty of the body.

October's first gallery is all Lаυrіе Jеffеry

5 photos is all we could coax out of our favourite photographer Lаυrіе Jеffеry this month. Happily for us, and for you, each and every one of his photos is worth an entire set of photos anywhere else, in fact, most of Jeffery's images are, alone, better than most websites!

See if you don't agree.