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What can you tell about someone from a pair of legs? Well, it turns out, a fair bit. A photo editor for The New York Times Magazine, Stacey Baker has spent the last three years roaming the streets of Manhattan and asking women if she can photograph their lower halves. It’s an interesting concept and one that has led to a wonderfully vibrant Instagram page that celebrates diversity. Here you’ll find all sorts of shapes, sizes and fashion senses. It truly is a celebration of women as well as the Big Apple's eclectic style. Baker has also taken her project to other locations including London, France and a number of U.S. cities, but NY remains her focus. The women are presented anonymously, only the location of where they were photographed accompanies their picture.
Now the Instagram page with 78,000 fans has been turned into a book, New York Legs, to be published by Kehrer Verlag on 10th of August.
In the book's introduction, Kathy Ryan, Director of Photography at The New York Times Magazine notes how Baker ensures uniformity among such range:
“She always frames them so the subject is cut off at the waist. She rigorously stages these photographs, asking the muse to stand in front of a gritty, textured wall, and composing each image so the heels line up with the horizon line where the wall meets the chewing-gum-pocked sidewalk, and always framing it so the thin strip of pavement takes up about a sixth of the picture. By following this disciplined approach, Baker has figured out a way to commandeer a portrait studio out of the chaos of midtown Manhattan.”
Check out some of the colourful bottom halves of the women of NY ahead...
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