
Phillip Toledano's series of photos entitled 'A New Kind of Beauty?' began when he was offered an assignment to photograph a man who had undergone multiple plastic surgery procedures.

Mr Toledano, who was born in London but lives and works in New York, befriended the man's press assistant and the pair began a friendship on Facebook. Through that friendship he came into contact with Allanah, a transgendered woman who had undergone plastic surgery on several occasions.



Plastic surgery patient Nikki pictured in 2009, one of photographer Phillip Toledano's unusual subjects for his series entitled A New Kind of Beauty?

Steve: Photographer Phillip Toledo began his unusual project after an assignment to photograph a man who'd had multiple plastic surgery procedures. After befriending the man's press officer he was put in contact with other plastic surgery patients

She agreed to pose for him and also put him into contact with other people for the project and through social networks and traditional word of mouth the project grew, as can be seen on his website .

Speaking to slate.com Mr Toledano said: 'In 50 or 100 years time, I think humanity won't look like it does today because of technology. We will be able to redefine what it means to look human and I think these people are the vanguard of that type of evolution.

Mr Toledano said he has been inspired by the 16th century German artist Hans Holbein the Younger, whose portraits are considered to be some of the most realistic of the time.

He added: 'I wanted to make beautiful and distinguished portraits of these people. … I wanted to represent a particular part of beauty from our time.

'Usually there are two kinds of feedback: the expected "Holy shit! These people look crazy," which definitely isn’t the point of the work. … it’s too easy in art to take a group or subgroup of people and point and laugh. I’ve never been interested in that.



'And then there are hopefully some people who understand the point I’m making about the direction we’re headed, which is what I’m trying to do. … I’m not naïve; I know people will look at the work and be taken aback, but I hope they can work through that and see the point I’m trying to make.'