Bodies Like Oceans (VERY NSFW)
September 18, 2017 8:48 PM   Subscribe

Shoog McDaniel, is a southern, queer, non-binary, fat photographer and artist living in Gainesville, Florida. "My work is about highlighting bodies and lives that are often overlooked by popular society. I enjoy photographing fat bodies, trans bodies, and queer bodies. People`with gap-toothed smiles and missing buttons. I capture images of my friends. With little exceptions, I have a connection with the humans in my photos and I intend to show that through the intimacy of my portraits. I strive to connect the viewer of each photo to beauty within themselves, through understanding the brilliancy of diversity, by showing them that there are many ways to be beautiful." (ALL LINKS VERY NSFW)

An interview with Teen Vogue.
Another interview with HungerTV.
Shoog's Instagram
posted by Grandysaur (17 comments total) 57 users marked this as a favorite


 
I can't get over that photo of holding a chicken while naked. Look at those claws next to all that delicate skin!
posted by the agents of KAOS at 8:59 PM on September 18, 2017 [5 favorites]


The "Pikachu plushie in front of the groin" pic made me laugh. Important work being done here to normalize the vast, beautiful variety of bodies that exist. Awesome post!
posted by ProtectoroftheSmall at 9:14 PM on September 18, 2017 [4 favorites]


I kept hoping I'd see someone I recognized! But no luck; the other side of the country is far away.
posted by tapir-whorf at 9:28 PM on September 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


Those pics of folks with Spanish Moss around their bare nether regions gave me the fantods. There's lots of creepy-crawlies that like to hide in that stuff, especially in clumps of it that have been lying around on the ground -- things like chiggers (some people call them redbugs), ticks, spiders, etc. This is the voice of experience talking.

Then I looked at the underwater shots, ye gads! -- these people live in Florida, have they never seen a snapping turtle? I once watched one snap a broomstick in two with a single bite. I'm all for body pride and stuff, but there are some places where you need to be careful with your floppy bits is all I'm saying.

Cool photos, though, and beautiful people!
posted by TwoToneRow at 9:56 PM on September 18, 2017


She is a FABULOUS photographer. Thanks so much for the link!
posted by Transl3y at 1:00 AM on September 19, 2017


Beautiful sensuous pictures, love the sensibility of them: can't look at them without anxiety, I've been in Florida and seen the bush there. And been bitten by the insects and that's even before you start thinking about undergrowth and alligators. My.

The plain landscape photos are just as elegiac.
posted by glasseyes at 1:24 AM on September 19, 2017


I had the same thoughts about bug bites (and snakes and...) but the pictures are great, with a tangible sense of connection between the photographer and subjects.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:54 AM on September 19, 2017


Thank you so much for sharing this.

What incredibly moving, healing work.

I feel cleansed and seen and home after going through Queers Spaces.
posted by MetropolisOfMentalLife at 5:02 AM on September 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


2nd link I clicked (trans) is a good friend. He looks amazing and apparently the photo is also in the Teen Vogue article. I had no idea; he never mentioned it. So excellent, this made my day, all of it, lovely fleshy embodied queers.
posted by donnagirl at 5:20 AM on September 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Kinda hope someday I am comfortable enough in my skin to be the subject of such photos before I am too old to look at naked.
posted by Samizdata at 5:22 AM on September 19, 2017


Hey Transl3y, just a heads up that Shoog's pronouns are they/them.

Thanks for the post, Grandysaur, I've followed Shoog online for a few years and love their work. They also seem to be very thoughtful and conscientious about their whiteness, in, for instance, giving half their Patreon earnings to a different QTPOC artist each month.
posted by ITheCosmos at 5:41 AM on September 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


Shoog is they/them
posted by Grandysaur at 5:41 AM on September 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Thanks so much for this -- just awesome.
posted by allthinky at 6:30 AM on September 19, 2017


Everybody posting about the chiggers and the snakes and snapping turtles: YES. If you go outside in Florida, you will immediately get murder reptiles in your hair and eyes and die. If you go swimming without a wetsuit on, you'll get the shigella complicated by typhus and you will die. Do not move here. Shoog is amazing and that's why Florida looks so idyllic in those pictures; in actuality, it's just one big septic eightlegged bloodfeast 24/7. In addition to the gorgeous and groundbreaking photos, Shoog also sells beautiful watercolors of native animals at arts festivals, but is it worth it? Absolutely not because the only safe places in the state of Florida are the beaches and Orlando, and those only after November and before February because the rest of the year mosquitoes so laden with zika they can barely fly infest the whole state, plus it is underwater. Stay safe. Buy Shoog's art online.

I mean, unless you want to move to a swing county and vote the right way and help us fight the infestation of septic eightlegged gerrymanderers. That would be worth the risk, plus you might get to meet Shoog, who is wonderful.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:41 AM on September 19, 2017 [15 favorites]


nomy lamm!!!!

aaaaahhhhh yay yay yay this is a good thing.
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 9:28 AM on September 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


I visit Florida every year or so currently, and part of me deeply wishes to be part of the world like that. I would love to see my fleshy friends photographed too.

Plus, like even with my fear of the outdoors, I am Australian. So I can handle Florida as long as there's someone there to translate the different kinds of deadly (stepping on a thing while swimming = not deadly for them, but please don't go and pick up the armadillos you idiot).
posted by geek anachronism at 10:56 PM on September 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Don't antagonize alligators. Avoid wild hogs. Wear mosquito repellent and sunscreen and sunglasses and a hat. Take precautions against ticks. Don't swim in alligator water at dawn or dusk. Don't eat ratlungworm snails or produce that's been crawled upon by ratlungworm snails. Don't buy a house in a recently built subdivision on the edge of the forest and leave trash and petfood and birdfeeders accessible and then be shocked when you're mauled by a black bear and whine to the evil idiot governor, who straightaway approves a horrible statewide bear hunt that leaves orphaned cubs all over the place. Don't pick up little animals that should be afraid of you but aren't because they might be rabid, except if you're at a populous campground when obviously it's that they've been fed for fifty years and are hence used to people. Then you can pick up the armadillos if they're into that and if you give them a piece of jerky or an apple slice or two for their trouble. It's okay: they're not all leprous degenerates. (Be aware that their tummies are horrifying, though. Pink with this patchy, downy... floss. Shudder...) And that's about it. Oh, wait, the sturgeon! Don't go speedboating around like a maniac in sturgeony water because you could get knocked in the brain and die. If you are lucky enough to find a snake, don't mess with it if you don't know what it is. But you won't find a snake because we've killed nearly all of them. We've killed off most of the native dangers, and even before we did, we were nowhere near Australia on the deadly crawlies scale. Shoog is taking pictures of people in the springs, which are pretty free of fauna, other than a few otters and mullet.
posted by Don Pepino at 6:56 AM on September 20, 2017 [5 favorites]


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