What an intriguing project. I tried looking at the photos as if they were posed and awake. So graceful and dreamy. But if I allow myself to see them as asleep, it becomes more voyeuristic and I am discomforted by their vulnerability. The photos are beautiful but disquieting at the same time.

A few years ago my sister had her friend who is a photographer come into their home in the wee hours of the morning when the light was filtering into the bedroom and take photographs of herself, husband and 3 year old son. The pictures are beautiful.

Unfortunately I watched the trailer for Jane Campions Sleeping Beauty that is mentioned and wish I hadn't. I am so often sickened by the sexually perverse people in this world. My stomach is on edge now and I seriously feel like puking. So yeah, photos of models who paid to sleep fully clothed, okay, weird. But that film? It explores things I wish everyday did not exist.

I have to say that I do fall asleep many times like the top two. And thanks for the heads up mrsberg will stay very far away from that film if I come across it, I have been having the worst nightmares this week and haven't slept so I don't need to add to it

I think these photos are stunning. What an interesting (and intimate) project.

stunning photos, but kind of disturbing. I agree with LINDADMYERS

I think it's unfortunate that your reading an interview about a movie sullied your experience with this art collection. There is a huge difference between a photography project whose participants are willing and who suffer no ill fate and a piece of fiction with a dark and sordid twist that happens to involve the same (commonplace) subject matter. I think it's fair that the photographs creep you out (if it's just that you find pictures of people sleeping strange, or taking pictures of people strange), but drawing a comparison between the two projects creates negative connotations that the collection doesn't seem to have had.

Ray44- I love that idea for a family portrait. Does anyone remember the photographer whose work was making the design blog rounds a few years ago- he or she did time lapse portraits of people sleeping? My favorite ones had dogs- over the covers, under the covers, foot of the bed, on the pillow, moving around all night!

A little creepy but very ethereal as well (although the woman in black looks like she could use a blanket). I can't really imagine having any type of family photos done as Ray44 mentioned--maybe some sleepy wake-up photos? My mom snapped a picture of my husband and me with our then-5 day old son when all three of us were totally sacked out in our bed. It always makes me smile when I see it because it is so telling of those first weeks home.

Of course the pictures are creepy, what do you expect when the photographer is a vampire?

ethereal...and just plain creepy *ick*

@MRSBERG - I must be missing something. Why would you care if other consenting adults are "sexually perverse" with each other?

@OP - I think the pics are beautiful. I had not seen them prior to your post. Interesting project!

hmm. I don't find this creepy at all. These photos are really nicely done and look almost like oil paintings. If you had to equate this with anything, i would say it's about as creepy (or less) than that myth busters episode where they tested out the "placing hand in warm water while you sleep" trick and filmed themselves and another guy sleeping. This sounds like a professional production. Comparing it to "Sleeping Beauty" adds too much subtext and is not relevant enough.

Strictly as somewhat fantastic (as in "fantasy") art, this is cool. I like the ethereal quality and the way the oblique angle makes the figures seem to float in space. That and the absence of contextualizing pillows and blankets deliberately frame the images as safely unrealistic and consciously "artistic" and painterly without any skeevy voyeurism.

Convert that to film and you get something that strikes me as potentially invasive and makes me deeply uncomfortable. Privacy is sacred...which is probably Campion's point. The old, traditional versions of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale are entirely menacing and nothing at all like the innocent pablum Disney feeds us. Voyeurism is an invasion, not something Prince Charming should be rewarded for.

I love the photos.
There is a voyeuristic quality about them, the women are (if seen as really sleeping) vulnerable in their sleep which frankly is what gives the images their edge and makes them so damn cool.

It doesn't bother me at all. They were willing volunteers, and to say art is off limits during sleep seems bizarre to me. We spend what, 1/3rd of our lives sleeping?

that being said I don't like that the images look like they were taken on a webcam. Low quality photography annoys me to no end, so I don't love these. But I like the idea well enough.

This is creepy in how it objectifies the women in a vulnerable state. Would I feel the same way if the artist also invited male models to participate? In any case, it's not nearly as discomfiting as Japanese artist Izima Kaoru's project "Landscape with a Corpse" where he asks models how they'd like to die and then stages the scene and photographs it:

http://vonlintel.com/Izima-Kaoru.html

I don't find it creepy or objectifying, and think it would work with male models as well.

That said, not a fan of the actual photos.

The project idea is cool, but the finished product is def. not my cup of tea.

I love this idea. Hadnt seen this work before, thanks for posting it. There will always be *some* artifice and manipulation involved even when sticking to the most stringent documentarian standards.

I made some work documenting my bed a few years back:
http://tinyurl.com/7jdemla

the premise still haunts me.