Women behind the lens: ‘Once naked, they formed a circle. The kicking and screaming occurred naturally’

Taken shortly after a spate of femicides in Peru, this image by the photographer Ana Elisa Sotelo captures a moment of sisterhood and solidarity This image is from Women of the Water, a project I started in 2022 in Puerto Natales, in southern Patagonia, Chile, when three female swimmers I met asked me to photograph them naked in the place they felt most powerful: the water. It was winter and the water was probably about zero degrees, but we experienced an incredible sensation of ease and freedom. When I got back to my home city of Lima in Peru, I decided to continue, developing the series through open calls. I have since expanded to Argentina, the US and Barbados. The photograph is called Women’s Circle, and I shot it in mid-March 2023. In the weeks before there had been a string of femicide cases in Lima. Anger and impotence were very present, but so were sisterhood and solidarity. I made an open call through Instagram and women I knew from the swimming community spread the word. Interested parties joined a WhatsApp group. We did not want any male peepers to be present so I only provided the location and details a day or so before. Another artist, Ana De Orbegoso, made a vest th