The Pescatarian - STEVEN R. TABOR

The Pescatarian

If you could become a super hero, who would it be?

This is a series of imaginary selfies. In this series, I assume the role of "the pescatarian". To do so, I transform into various aquatic creatures and travel the world with naked, attractive young women as my guides. As "the pescatarian", I explore the world, quite literally as a fish out of water.

When COVID forced us into lockdown, I sought a way to photograph subjects that would enable me to explore the world, even if only in my imagination. I thought of the photobook "To have and to be: posing nude with big fish" by Gary Kuehn and Sarah Bereza, which was published in 2006. Kuehn, a pioneer of Minimal art, and Bereza invited young women to pose naked with a fish in various settings, such as playing the piano, dining, sitting by a fireplace, showering, or standing on the snow-covered Brooklyn Bridge. The images were full of humor and absurdity, with a surreal atmosphere created by the juxtaposition of everyday material life with naked women holding big fish. The title of the series also played on Eric Fromm's 1976 book "To have or to be," which criticized materialism's impact on people's hedonism, egotism, and selfishness, and championed the concept of "being" as the path to living as one's best self.

Rather than seeking volunteers online to wander around with a big fish, like Kuehn and Bereza had done, I contacted several models to see if they would be willing to pose nude with a fish or a crustacean in my photo studio. Most agreed to do so, demonstrating their sporting nature, even though most of them were vegans who found the sea creatures' pungent odor quite unpleasant under the hot studio lights. For their good efforts, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to these models - Olive, Anne, Ellen, Dafne, and Ameria - all of whom spent an afternoon posing with a big fish, lobster, octopus, or crab. In post, I was able to transport these images into my imagined settings and, with a few keystrokes, bring my alter-ego, "the pescatarian," to life.

If you would like to see the full series, download the PDF photobook here.