Birthday Suits

For 40 years, Lucy Hilmer has photographed herself on her birthday wearing nothing but her white lolly pop underpants, shoes and socks. She made her first Birthday Suit self-portrait in Death Valley, CA in 1974. Without fail, she has faced her camera every year since then, on April 22nd, to create a coded history of one woman’s journey through time. As a girl-child of the 1950s, Hilmer came of age before women’s lib, and wanted to buck the stereotypes of a culture that branded her a pretty girl, thin enough to be a fashion model and not much more. Armed with her camera and tripod, she found a way to define herself on her own terms in the most open, vulnerable way she could. Birthday Suits: A Woman, Her Camera & Time is a long-term project that will continue for as long as Hilmer lives. In 2015, she turns 70. A book & film about her series are currently under production.