I wanted nude photos of myself. Beautiful, tasteful ones –- those are the sexiest, anyway –- but unabashedly nude. Not coy, not flirty, not teasing, but real. One day, not too long ago, I decided to risk it. I was not so clear about what was being risked, but something was definitely at stake. It became an imperative to find out.

Perhaps, after not dancing on stage for several years, I was missing a physical challenge, a theatrical challenge. On the day of my appointment with photographer Marie-Claire Montanari, I was as nervous as if I were about to make an entrance in a ballet I barely knew.

Having felt an obvious reticence about dealing with a male photographer, I had been delighted when a friend showed me an advertisement for a French woman photographer who does female nudes. After an initial meeting at her studio I booked a two-hour session one week later. In her early 40s, Marie-Claire has been photographing women for five years. Her photographs are elegant, black and white, softly lit sculptural images. (An exhibition of her work is currently showing at Manhattan’s Neikrug Photographica gallery.) She prefers to work without the face, saying –- interestingly –- that too often the body and the face are not well-matched for a unified portrait.

As instructed, the morning of the shoot I wore no violently colored nail polish or makeup, and no socks, underwear or belts that would leave their peculiar marks of civilization on my skin. I climbed into a cab and furtively gave the driver the address. No one knew what I was about to do; there was a pleasant air of justifiable criminality about the adventure.

The window shades were drawn, the heating was on full blast, and a selection of silk and satin antique furniture was available for props, along with soft mounds of pale taffeta. This was fairyland. What fun! Marie-Claire showed me where I could change and closed the door to give me privacy. (Strange how one is always left to undress in private, here as at the doctor’s, only to reappear naked. It’s as if one’s choice of clothing were the truly private issue.) For the next few hours I posed, seated, kneeling, standing, leaning, folded, stretched.

A week later I returned to look at the contact sheets. After the initial shock, the realization that that creature was me took over, and for the very first time I saw myself, not a distorted mirror image. Here I was set, fixed, shaped, framed and undeniable. I also recognized something surprising. There were no surprises here. My nudes looked like other nudes I had seen; I was Everywoman and Everywoman was me – what a relief.

The process is, on one level, a gloriously narcissistic and exhibitionistic event. It is a private celebration of female power –- for while husbands, lovers and fiancés are often the fortunate recipients of this romantic excess, they are ultimately only the trusted custodians of the images, not the creators.

This is an entirely female affair –- a service by a woman for a woman. And therein lie the trust and collusion. I’ve told several woman friends about my pictures and every one has said, some with real intent and some without, “I’d love to do that.”

I now know why I wanted to do this and had felt so urgent about it: These photographs are permanent and I am not. They promise endurance beyond my own. Ultimately, it is a witnessing of the external part of me. It is, of course, the only visible one, the only tangible one, the only one with a definite shape. It is my essential casing.

I wonder about who might inherit these private expositions. While they may lie in wait for dramatic discovery in a dusty attic or garage sale, they are in reality, like so much else in life that defines us, probably for my descendants, something to surprise them, something for them to be proud of. And perhaps to remind them that even great grandparents were once young and naked.