When I posted the beautiful photography of Leonard Nimoy last year on Yahoo 360, I received many kind comments in response to it. I would like to repost it because I have many new friends on Multiply that have not seen it. For those of you who have seen this, I have added some new photographs of his for you to enjoy.

In addition to being a movie director, producer, author and actor (Spock from Star Trek), Leonard Nimoy has been a professional photographer for 40 years. His topic of choice? Nude women.

Leonard Nimoy grew up in a Jewish Orthodox neighborhood in Boston, went to an Orthodox synagogue, and sang in the choir. His family actually spoke Yiddish at home. He began acting on stage as a child in Boston, and as a teen, he performed at war bond rallies. His older brother, Melvin Nimoy, graduated from MIT and became a chemical engineer. Leonard studied drama at Boston College and later the Pasadena Playhouse (1949-50) before finding small parts in B-movies and TV shows. A brief stint of military service (December 3rd, 1953 – November 23rd, 1955) interrupted his early years as a young character actor.

Leonard Nimoy first experienced the magic of making photographic images as a teen-ager in the early 1940’s. “I was about thirteen,” he says, when he discusses his attraction to the family camera, a bellows Kodak Autographic, which is a cherished part of his collection to this day. His darkroom was the family bathroom in their small Boston apartment. His subjects were family and friends. Nimoy’s first enlarger was a do-it-yourself number built around the same family Kodak.

Nimoy studied at UCLA under Robert Heineken in the early 1970’s and produced a body of work which was published in two books of poetry, You and I and Will I Think of You. Nimoy describes the images as “romantic, sentimental landscapes, still lives, and couples.”

During a recent “artist in residence” appointment at the American Academy in Rome, Nimoy produced a series of images based on the Antonio Canova sculpture of Paulina Bonaparte Borghese.

Of Nimoy’s latest images, in his spirit/flesh series, noted art critic Donald Kuspit has written, “Leonard Nimoy’s photographs show an exquisite sensibility…Nimoy’s fascination with the female body involves an element of temptation as well as transcendence.”

The Shekhina Project

by Leonard Nimoy

A photographic essay about the feminine presence of God

When Leonard Nimoy’s book of photography, “Shekhina,” was published in 2002, it created a ruckus. His depiction of alluringly glamorous women — some wearing tefillin in all their naked glory — as the essence of the feminine manifestation of God struck some as revolutionary and others as salacious. The book sold well, and even inspired a ballet aptly named, “Shekhina” by a New York choreographer.
A feminine word in Hebrew, Shekhina is the Talmudic term for the visible and audible manifestations of the Deity’s presence on Earth. Over time, Shekhina came to represent much more — a softer, empathetic feminine counterpart to God who could argue for humanity’s sake, comfort the poor and sick, and stand as the mother of Israel. Nimoy’s first encounter with the mystique of Shekhina began in synagogue at the age of 8. “The men were chanting, shouting and praying in an Orthodox service. It was very passionate, very theatrical,” said Nimoy. His father told him not to look, as the worshippers averted their eyes during blessings recited by the kohanim, or descendants of the priestly class. “I was chilled by the whole thing,” he said. Years later Nimoy’s rabbi explained to him that the entry of Shekhina into the sanctuary to bless the congregation could cast a fatally blinding light. Such a powerful memory inspired the actor/photographer to explore the feminine aspect of God in human form, including the issues of sensuality and sexuality.