World Bodypainting Festival 2022, Klagenfurt, Austria

My lovely wife bought me a Photographer's Pass to the WBF 2020, for Christmas 2019. It was to be my first visit to what, on line, looked like a long weekend of creativity, fun, music, Art with a capital "A", and of course photography. A gathering of gregarious, free spirited artists and models, working together to show off the beauty and potential of the human body, share their ideas, demonstrate their skills, socialise with like minded people, and generally have a great time...

Then Covid hit. WBF 2020 was drastically scaled back to an limited on-line event. 2021 was also on-line, but benefited from more time to plan and prepare. It was wonderful to be able to make it happen this year, and to make use of my somewhat delayed present.

Here are the best of my photographs and, if you'll indulge me, some of my own efforts in the Academy workshops that preceded the festival weekend.

There are many different categories for competitions and awards for techniques and creativity - Airbrush, Brush and Sponge, Special Effects, Camouflage, Face painting, Creative Makeup, Team challenges, Amateur and Professional classes. Artists come from all over Europe, South America, USA, and the Far East. A very large enthusiastic contingent came all the way from Korea!

For Photographers, there are two competition categories, Best Bodypainting Photo and Best Fashion/Portrait Photo.  Here are my entries (eight pictures in each) plus a few more that I would like to have entered if it had been permitted.

Bodypainting entries

Portrait entries

WBF Academy

In  the week leading up to the festival, the WBF organised scheduled a raft of workshops, run by many of the experts and specialists who have participated in past festivals as competitors and judges. Here are a couple of my primitive efforts under the guidance of Airbrush specialist Ernst Weiser, and two sessions with Wolf Reicherter on UV body painting, plus some images of paintings by others seeking to learn the secrets of these masters. First my Blue Buddha buddy with model Franz Seckel (the first time I've ever worked with a male model), then UV images hinting at Mexico's Day of the Dean celebrations with model Shi Swallow. In the first picture of Franz, his right hand displays the 'teaching' mudra and his left the 'giving' or 'gifting' mudra. Blue is the colour of the fourth Buddha Aksobya, and symbolises 'awareness', so I gave the picture the title "The Precious Gift of Awareness".

And finally, the slide show below presents a selection of the works made in the academy classes.