Nude photography is a unique genre filled with emotions, sensuality, grace, and boldness. This photography is not often found in many photographers’ portfolios, and it requires a different vision and creativity to develop masterpieces.

Though nude photography has been associated with male photographers, a few female nude photographers have successfully marked their names in the list of the best in the genre.

Let’s take a look at these 11 famous female nude photographers who have and are inspiring all the budding female photographers of the industry.

1. Annie Leibovitz

Originated In: Waterbury, Connecticut

Bio:

Annie is an American female nude photographer known for engaging portraits, particularly of celebrities, often featuring subjects in intimate settings and unique poses.

In the 1970s and 1980s, her iconic photographs of famous people initially appeared in Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. By the 1990s, they had been the focus of international museum exhibitions.

Projects:

• Yoko Ono; John Lennon (Rolling Stone cover, 1981)
• Keith Haring
• Demi Moore
• Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace

Awards:

• 2018 Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design
• 2016 International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum
• 2015 Paez Medal of Art from VAEA
• 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication]
• 2009 The Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography
• 2003 The Lucie Awards
• 1999 ADC Hall of Fame

View Her Work: Instagram

2. Nan Goldin

Originated In: Washington, D.C., United States

Bio:

An American photographer and activist to address contentious subjects like HIV/AIDS crisis and the drug epidemic is Nan Goldin. Nan’s raw images and intensive portraits are well known.

Her work often explores LGBT subcultures, moments of intimacy, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the opioid epidemic. She is a founding member of the advocacy group P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now)

Her most significant piece of work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependence, which was produced between 1979 and 1986, perfectly captures these ideas.

Projects:

• The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.
• Cookie Mueller (exhibition catalog)
• The Other Side
• Vakat
• Desire by Numbers
• A Double Life

Awards:

• 2006: Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
• 2007: Hasselblad Award
• 2012: 53rd Edward MacDowell Medal, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH
• 2018: Royal Photographic Society Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship Collections

View Her Work: Instagram

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3. Sally Mann

Originated In: Lexington, Virginia

Bio:
One of the most prominent female nude photographers today is Sally Mann. Mann is renowned for making her own family the main focus of her writing.

 The large format of her work is black and white photographs. She published a collection of photographs in the 1990s that showed her young children in close-up.
The series attracted a lot of controversy, yet there’s no denying their striking beauty and original view of infancy.

Projects:

• Early Work
• Southern Landscapes
• Faces
• At Twelve
• Battlefields

Awards and Recognition:

• NEA
• NEH
• Guggenheim Foundation grants
• Her work is held by major institutions internationally
• In 2001, Mann was named “America’s Best Photographer” by Time magazine.

View Her Work: Website | Instagram

4. Lalla Essaydi

Originated In: Marrakesh, Morocco

Bio:

Lalla A. Essaydi is a Moroccan photographer known for staged photographs of Arab women in contemporary art.

Her large-scale photographs explore the intersection of culture, gender, body type, and identity. She speaks about equality through her work. Her work often features nude women who are draped in Arabic calligraphy.

Projects:

• Les Femmes du Maroc: Grande Odalisque
• Bullets
• Bullets Revised
• Converging Territories

Awards and Recognitions:

• She was named #18 in Charchub’s “Top 20 Contemporary Middle Eastern Artists in 2012-2014”
• In 2012 she received a Medal Award from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

View Her Work: Website | Instagram

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5. Lilith

Originated In: Sevenum, the Netherlands

Bio:

HJIMvanGasteren (Henriëtte Johanna Ignatia Maria van Gasteren), formerly known as Lilith, is a multimedia artist who has won numerous awards and is a well-known portrait photographer.

She uses self-portraits to describe how women are seen in society today. Identity, gender roles, freedom, equality, religion, and the good and bad sides of the human experience are recurring themes in her writing. A female nude photographer who has won numerous awards and is known for her creativity expressed in her images.

Projects:

• Bit player
• Faded glory
• A house is not a home
• Domestic Goddess
• Monochrome

Awards:

2023:

• 16th Annual Color Awards
• Honorable Mention in Fashion Photography | Hide & seek self-portrait (series: A house is not a home)2022:
• Certificate Luxembourg Art Prize 2022
• IPA 2022 Official Selection One shot photo contest – Color / Portrait / Bunny in the tub self-portrait (series: A house is not a home)

2020

• Certificate Luxembourg Art Prize 2022
• IPA 2022 Official Selection One shot photocontest – Color / Portrait / Bunny in the tub self-portrait (series: A house is not a home)

2019

• IPA 2019, honorable mention category People – Self-Portrait with part of the series ‘The journey of self-discovery: the headless way’
• Life Framer Photography Award, Open Call, honorary mention with ‘Beeldvorming’ portrait of Disability Rights Defender Harry Schreurs

View Her Work: Website | Instagram

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6. Lauren Naylor

Originated In: Los Angeles, California, United States

Bio:

Lauren’s distinctive photographic style is based on gloomy undertones and surreal landscapes. She creates a dream environment for her subject using imaginative set design and cinematic elements. She is a visual artist focusing on expressive narrative and human emotion.

Naylor is a visual artist passionate about dreams and a firm understanding of emotions. She creates a fantasy landscape for her subject by imaginatively utilizing light and accessories. 

Projects:

• Moses Sumney Press Work
• Counterpart
• At The Inn for Glassbook Magazine
• Three Graces
• Age of Atoms for Hunger Magazine

Awards: NA

View Her Work: Website | Instagram

7. Bettina Rheims

Originated In: Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

Bio:

French photographer and artist Bettina Caroline Germaine Rheims. She began her profession by taking pictures of acrobats and striptease dancers, and over the years, she rose to become one of the most renowned photographers.

“I adore flesh. I am a skin photographer,” she says famously, and that perfectly explains her work as a female nude photographer. She achieves a visceral reaction that enthralls the audience with it, and it is raw and sensual, frequently including nudity and stuffed animals.

Projects:

• Book Chambre Close
• Monsieur X” with Rheims
• I.N.R.I.

Awards:

1994: Grand Prix de la Photographie, Paris
2013: Commander of the French Legion of Honour (Officer, 2006)
2018: Grand officier de l’ordre du Mérite.

View Her Work: Instagram

8. Gracie Hagen

Originated In: Chicago

Bio:

Gracie Hagen is a self-taught photographer and videographer. As a result, she has evolved a personal aesthetic solely motivated by her desire to produce the kinds of photographs she finds appealing.

She wants the basic similarities that lie behind our great diversity to be revealed in her work. As a result, her work frequently consists of series with unifying angles, stances, and backdrops but distinctive models and faces that are as variable as mankind itself.

Each of us is the same. We are all unique. Although several series have unconnected subjects, they all depict different portions of the same body.

Projects:

• Jolie June 2014
• Q May 2014
• Drawn Down Books March 2013
• The Printed Blog August 2012

Awards:

• Art of Play
• Commissioned Work
• Beauty in Chaos
• Altered Sameness
• Processing the Destination
• Illusions of the Body

Honorable mention and feature in:

• The Daily Mail
• Buzzfeed
• Beautiful Decay
• FStoppers

View Her Work: Website | Instagram

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9. Mona Kuhn

Originated In: São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil

Bio:

Mona Kuhn is a lens-based media artist and photographer. Kuhn, who has received praise for her modern portrayals, is regarded as a pioneer in the field of figurative discourse.

According to Kuhn, the person, and its depiction serve as a stage for our complicated desires, fears, and emotions.

Kuhn developed a notable approach to the nude as she developed her photographic style. Her art is natural and peaceful and reinterprets the nude of modern art.

Projects:

• Behind the Scenes
• Kings Road
• She Disappeared into Complete Silence
• Bushes & Succulents
• Installations
• Private Series

Awards:

• 2021  The Stieglitz Award, for continued excellence and commitment to the photographic community, Los Angeles Center for Photography
• 2020  The Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Fine Art Figurative Works, Mediterranean House of Photography, Barcelona, Spain

View Her Work: Website | Instagram

10. Denisse Ariana Pérez

Originated In: Carribean, Barcelona

Bio:

Caribbean-born Denisse Ariana Pérez works as a copywriter and photographer in Barcelona. Her obsession is finding methods to have words, people, and imagery interact with one another.

Denisse’s photographic work has been featured in It’s Nice That, The Guardian, El Pais, VICE, Afropunk, Dazed, Ignant,  Marie Claire,  Hunger,  Atmos,  Sand Magazine, Elephant Magazine, Paulette Magazine, and Accent Magazine. Her forte is unique colored portraits and editing.

Projects:

• Cloaked
• Flowers and Water
• Boys and Water
• Boys, Men, and Cocks
• Men and Water
• Rocks
• Street Still Life

Awards:

• Finalist Musee du quai Branly Grant,2019. 
• Finalist Taylor Wessing Prize 2019. 
• Winner BarTur Award 2020.-Shortlist Portraits of Humanity 2020 by British Journal of Photography.

View Her Work: Website | Instagram

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11. Cindy Sherman

Originated In: Glen Ridge, New Jersey,

Bio:

American artist Cynthia Morris Sherman (born 1954) specializes in photography self-portraits in which she portrays herself in various settings and as numerous fictional characters.

The collection of Untitled Film Stills, a collection of 70 black-and-white images of herself recalling traditional female characters in performance media (particularly in indie films and well-liked B films), is frequently regarded as her most important work. She emphasized wardrobe, lighting, and facial expression more in the 1980s and used color film and huge prints.

Projects:

• Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman
• Essential, The: Cindy Sherman
• Cindy Sherman: Retrospective (Paperback)
• In Real Life: Six Women Photographers
• Early Work of Cindy Sherman.
• Guest of Cindy Sherman
• Transformations

Awards:

• 2003: American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award
• 2009: Jewish Museum’s Man Ray Award
• 2010: Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, London
• 2012: Roswitha Haftmann Prize
• 2013: Honorary doctorate degree from the Royal College of Art, London
• 2017: Induction into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum
• 2020: Wolf Prize in Art

View Her Work: Website | Instagram

Conclusion

These 11 female nude photographers have forever impacted the nude photography industry.

Their efforts pushed the limits of what was possible with the camera and produced classic works of art that will inspire photographers for decades to come.

They have developed an innovative photography style that will continue to develop and expand for years to come by taking a courageous stand against social standards.

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