Laurie Toby Edison is a photographer and social-change activist whose work addresses body image issues in a variety of populations. Debbie Notkin is a writer and editor who has worked closely with Edison on three body-image related projects (Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes: Familiar Men: A Book of Nudes; and Women of Japan, an as-yet-unpublished portrait suite). All of these projects are discussed in detail below.

In the scorching summer of 2007, record temperatures were set across Japan and electrical demand for air conditioning threatened power outages throughout the Tokyo metropolitan area. Despite the oppressive heat, the leafy green canopy along Zelkova Avenue (ケヤキ通り Keyaki Dōri) extending southwest from the Tsurugashima Station on the Tobu Tojo train line provided a shady passage on my bicycle rides to the station and nearby supermarket. The tips of the highest branches of the trees on one side of the street touched those on the other. This was somewhat unusual in Japan, where trees that line city streets are often closely cropped. The trees along Zelkova Avenue had been allowed to grow to relative maturity, so they indeed appeared like giant upside down brooms with splendid foliage, as described in a plaque next to a zelkova in a Kawagoe Park.