‘I took this near where people work out for my guerilla-style Wait Watchers series. When it went viral, I started getting hateful messages about my body’
It all started when I took a self-portrait in Times Square, New York. After I got the film developed, I noticed this man in the background appeared to be smirking at me. I thought: “What happens if you turn your camera around?” And it became a social experiment for the next five years.
I would find a heavily populated area, position myself to do something “mundane” to fit in, something similar to what other people were doing there, and then I’d take a burst of self-portraits, showing me but also the wider scene. So here I’m stretching because I’m at Venice Beach in Los Angeles, and about 10 feet to the left is Muscle Beach, with people working out.