Whanganui treasures sought for photography project

Photographer Mandi Lynn with one of the Wellington golden maiden volunteers.

Award-winning Wellington photographer Mandi Lynn is coming to Whanganui and she wants bodies.

Women's bodies that is, and she hopes to photograph as many as possible for her "everybody is a treasure" project.

Lynn started the project in Upper Hutt where 100 women of all shapes, sizes and ages volunteered their torsos to be daubed in gold clay and photographed for her body positive project.

The 20 images she selected won her the New Zealand Photographers Association Iris Award last month.

Now she plans to take the show on the road and capture as many willing women as possible to spread the message that very few are blessed with the idealised and airbrushed bodies we see in magazines.

Lynn describes herself as a "mojo midwife" with a mission to help women shine.

"I am with women when they break through years of culturally indoctrinated self abuse and finally let their inner beauty shine."

From Roswell, Georgia in the United States, Lynn says she was a consultant nurse before taking up photography.

"I am a body positive cheerleader who helps women of all shapes and sizes and ages to learn to embrace and treat their body as their best friend.

"The women we have photographed so far range from a size 6 to a size 30 and are aged from 18 to 78.

"We have two-breasted women, and one-breasted women, women with lumps, women with scars, women with rolls, and women with flat chest and boy bodies (their words not mine).

"They are all perfect."

Lynn has got her own kit off and been photographed as a "gilded maiden".

It all started, she says when a bath bomb recipe went wrong.

"I got the crazy idea of mixing the golden mica with bentonite clay and covering myself and some friends and photographing our torsos."

The photographer says it is not for everybody but it can change lives, and she hopes to meet some Whanganui "treasures" when she and her team roll in to town in their "glittery, golden vintage caravan" early next year.

To find out more visit themojomidwife.com