Strange, surreal and sexy: 31 images that changed the way we see our bodies – The Guardian

These photographs show us our bodies as we have never seen them before. Edward Weston’s captures a transcendental elegance in his lover Charis, as she dips her face from view like a resting swan tucking its head beneath a wing. The late Ren Hang, whose nude portraits of queer Chinese youth challenged government censors, lines up a mountain range of undulating bottoms. Arno Rafael Minkkinen’s self-portrait, pale limbs sandwiched between those of a silver birch, has a mischievous otherworldliness. It is as if you could step inside the frame, and into a magical world. There is nothing like an image of a body to expand your mind.