200 nude models take part in Spencer Tunick's Dead Sea photography project

Israel: Hundreds of people wearing only white body paint walked through a desert expanse near the Dead Sea, as part of US artist Spencer Tunick's latest photography project.

The 54-year-old photographer traveled to southern Israel as a guest of the Tourism Ministry to represent the shrinking Dead Sea for the third time through nude subjects, 200 took part in a nude photoshoot by the deadsea.

Tunick, dressed in black, could be seen on Sunday standing on the roof of a vehicle and giving orders on a megaphone. “Everyone puts their feet together,” he said. "Fingers in the nose."

[caption id="attachment_38277" align="alignnone" width="1280"] 200 hundred pose nude near dead sea[/caption]

“To me, the body represents beauty, life and love,” said Tunick, who has organized dozens of large-scale nude photoshoots around the world.

PhD student Anna Kleiman, 26, said she joined the shoot to raise awareness about the environmental crisis. “It feels really natural, once you take your clothes off,” she said. “You kind of don't want to put them back. I think we just struggled with the rocks a bit. Tunick portrayed over 1,000 nude models a decade ago on the shores of the salty Dead Sea, which recedes about a meter a year.

Israel and Jordan have diverted much of the water upstream for agriculture and drinking water, while mineral extraction and evaporation accelerated by climate change have compounded the problem.

[caption id="attachment_38278" align="aligncenter" width="515"] Tunick Spencer Dead Sea Photography in Israel[/caption]

By the time Tunick returned five years later, the calm waters of his first shoot had receded, leaving behind crusty sand and gaping chasms.

On Sunday, Tunick posed his subjects on stony brown hills overlooking the turquoise lake. About 200 people followed his instructions, male and female, standing and hunched over.

He said he chose to cover the models with white paint to evoke the biblical story of Lot's wife, who allegedly turned into a pillar of salt.

Some conservative leaders in Israel have opposed the project of Tunick, a lawmaker demanding that the tourism ministry withdraw its sponsorship of the "mass abomination event."

Ben Hamo said he saw the project as an affirmation of Arad "as a liberal city" and hoped the shoot would attract more visitors and help raise funds for a new museum on the Dead Sea.

[caption id="attachment_38279" align="aligncenter" width="428"] Nude models by the Dead Sea[/caption] Engineer Gil Shavit, 63, spoke to reporters after the shoot. “We're lucky to have clouds today so it's not too hot,” Shavit said.

He said he posed for the Tunick Dead Sea Project in 2011 and was grateful to be back. "It's fascinating to watch," he said, adding, "Spencer can't do his job without us."