這是本書像是腋下打開的瞬間。
七十五歲的金雲阿姨，是我在咖啡廳打工時認識的洗碗同事。我剛來上班沒幾天，在午休片刻時，
金雲阿姨突然問我「少年郎，要不要看我年輕的性感照」
接過相簿的我不以為意，當我翻閱她過去的照片時卻極為震驚，這是她35年前的舊照片，畫面裡她高高抬起自己的手臂，秀出腋毛，不迎合慣常對女性身體與性感的想像，安靜而篤定的望向鏡頭⋯⋯
她三十五年來經常這樣給人自豪地分享這組照片，金雲阿姨上班時，即使在需要反覆碰水、清洗油膩餐具的工作中，金雲仍穿著鮮豔的衣服，戴著閃亮的髮夾，塗上飽滿的指甲油。我想知道，當一個人花了三十五年，至今都在堅持自己的美，那會是什麼模樣？
於是我邀請她拍攝現在的模樣，起初她推辭，因為她認為「腋毛都掉光了，沒那麼性感」，但當我鏡頭一舉起，她的雙手仍本能地放上頭頂。
日後拍攝她添購小雨傘、耳環、項鍊，修改衣服尺寸，自己設計假髮，帶我去過往常常拍攝的地點，中正紀念堂、大安森林公園、自家附近公園等地點拍攝。
本攝影書計畫便以此為核心：三十五年前，金雲阿姨留下一系列她自豪的性感照，高舉手臂、展示腋毛，與我拍攝七十五歲的她現在並置。
封面設計如同一次打開腋下的動作，以肩膀與衣服的交界作為視覺起點，當讀者翻開封面進入蝴蝶頁時，會慢慢看見一小部分腋毛的特寫。從封面到內頁的翻閱過程，也對應著打開肩膀、展露腋下的身體姿態，像是透過腋下，慢慢理解金雲阿姨的美。
This book opens like an arm raised to reveal an armpit.
I met Auntie Jin Yun, now seventy-five, while working at a café, where we washed dishes together. Only a few days into the job, she suddenly asked me during a lunch break, “Young man, do you want to see my sexy photos from when I was young?”
I took the album without expecting much. But as I turned the pages, I was stunned. The photographs had been made thirty-five years earlier. In them, Jin Yun raises her arms high to reveal her armpit hair. Rather than conforming to conventional ideas of the female body and what is considered sexy, she meets the camera with a quiet, unwavering gaze.
For thirty-five years, Jin Yun has proudly shared this series of photographs with the people around her. At work, even as she repeatedly immersed her hands in water and washed greasy dishes, she continued to wear vivid clothes, sparkling hair clips, and brightly painted nails. I began to wonder: What does beauty look like when someone has spent thirty-five years holding fast to her own sense of it?
I invited her to make new portraits with me. At first, she hesitated, saying, “My armpit hair is all gone. I’m not as sexy anymore.” Yet as soon as I raised my camera, her hands instinctively returned above her head.
During the shoots that followed, Jin Yun bought small parasols, earrings, and necklaces. She altered her clothes, designed her own wigs, and took me back to places where she had often posed for photographs in the past: Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Daan Forest Park, and parks near her home.
The photobook brings together two moments separated by thirty-five years. The “sexy photos” Jin Yun has proudly preserved—in which she raises her arms and displays her armpit hair—are placed alongside the portraits we made together when she was seventy-five.
The cover enacts the gesture of lifting an arm and revealing an armpit. Beginning with the line where the shoulder meets the clothing, the image gradually opens onto the endpapers, where a small close-up of armpit hair comes into view. Moving from the cover into the book echoes the movement of the body: opening the shoulder, raising the arm, and exposing the underarm. Through this intimate and usually hidden part of the body, the book invites readers to gradually encounter the beauty Jin Yun has defined and sustained for herself.
13x19x1cm
124 pages
Hardcover
2026
