Leonard Nimoy Photography Show Opens in Massachusetts

Leonard Nimoy is most widely known as the actor who played Spock in Star Trek, but the man himself is also an accomplished director, poet, musician and photographer. And after nearly 60 years honing his craft, his first solo photography show at a major museum opens this week.

Beginning August 1st, Nimoy’s “Secret Selves” will be on display at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA). With 26 color photographs, half of them life-size, the exhibit contains portraits of people in their various secret identities, an idea that Nimoy describes as an attempt to explore the lost or hidden self.

As Nimoy explains it, the genesis of the exhibit arose from his discovery of an ancient Greek tale about the origin of humanity, one that supposed that every man and woman once was attached to another, and that once separated we began searching for our other half.

“I was struck by that idea, that many of us have another side to us that we are not in touch with, or that we do not get a chance to explore or present,” Nimoy has said. “We present a certain aspect of ourselves, but there are other unexplored, or hidden, or lost parts to ourselves.”

To convey this feeling into his photographs, Nimoy gathered 100 volunteers from the local community — artists, lawyers, doctors, business owners — and asked them “Who do you think you are?” Each of them then came up with alternate identities and brought their own clothes and props, and Nimoy photographed them.

Nimoy, 79, has been taking pictures since he was 13 years old. He studied photography at UCLA before making it big in Hollywood, and now, after appearing in dozens of films and television shows, he has retired from acting in order to work with his camera full time.

Nimoy’s “Secret Selves” will debut at the MASS MoCa on Sunday, August 1st.