[KarlMalone]

Slate.com: This Woman Took a Self-Portrait Every Year in Just Her Birthday Suit

A couple of decades ago, Lucy Hilmer found herself at J.C. Penney buying 60 pairs of lollipop underpants.

She wanted to make certain she wouldn’t run out of them.

In 1974, Hilmer, then 29 and wearing the somewhat gaudy undergarment, took the first of what would become a life-long series of self-portraits titled “Birthday Suits.” She has since added one more image to the series every April 22, her birthday, each time wearing only the underpants, shoes, and socks.

Hilmer wasn’t thinking about doing anything but having a little fun when she took that first shot. She traveled to Death Valley with a tripod to pay homage to Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Zabriskie Point by taking some shots of herself in various forms of undress including a few nudes.

“When I went back into my darkroom to look at the proof sheets, the picture I recognized as my true self was this sort of more vulnerable one in my dorky underpants I happened to have on that day,” she said.

Showing her true self is one of the inspirations behind “Birthday Suits.” At first, the pictures were a reaction to a career she had been encouraged to pursue in her younger days: working as a photographer’s model.

Pics in the article with topless nudity.