Lia: A Body Building Story is the documentary study of a woman training for a body building competition to be held in November 2022. She competed in the category of “figures” which entails posing in 6 different viewpoints to show her muscle definition and stature.
The project is the look into a world that most people do not know nor understand. The photographs tell her story of training, diet control, beauty preparations and finally the competition in November in San Antonio, chronicling every stage of the process. It is a character study of a highly motivated woman who is driven to be successful, using her body as an instrument of beauty, strength. empowerment, and control.
The project was made into a documentary short film which is currently playing on the international movies festival circuit and has won many awards including 5 first place award. Lia is now training for her final two competitions in 2024 and I will be photographing and chronicling all of the events which can be seen on IG
@liataylorchronicles.
Susan Weiss
Susan Weiss is a multidisciplinary artist working in the mediums of drawing, photography, graphics, and video/film. She is both a working artist and an art educator, teaching both live and zoom classes.
Susan’s work explores the intersection of identity and the social landscape of contemporary culture. Her documentary work has explored the lives of military families during a deployment 2009-2011, the refugee crisis in Lesbos and Berlin, and the border crisis at Laredo/El Paso. Her long term project, “Humanity In The Modern World” documents humanitarian and NGO work in other countries including Moldova, Vietnam, Cambodia. The work for these projects includes photography, written articles, speaking engagements and interviews.
Her teaching of drawing and painting includes both live classes and via Zoom. She also advises art students on preparing their portfolios and preparation for interviews and school applications. During the pandemic all classes were via zoom including partnering with a film instructor who lectured on the films selected and Susan taught drawing from the film stills, culminating in creating a trailer consisting of the class drawings.
She is currently working on several projects that are in various stages of completion. THE ORCHARD, a series of polaroid type images photographed during the pandemic will be published in October, 2024, by Green Writers Press. KILT ENVY is a personal story of finding possible relatives in a kilt shop in Scotland. LIA: A Body Building Story has been made into a short documentary film which follows a female body builder to a professional tournament. THIMBLE SPELL is a series of photography books created in manga style novellas aimed at the teen reader’s market. There are currently 2 in production and they deal with life themes including hope and faith, loss and sadness.
OH BABY is a photographic and text study of violence against women.
www.susanweissart.com
@susanweissart
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