Mamamia Team Friday 23 November 2012 9:22am

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Julia Kozerski has the courage of a lion. There are naked self-portraits on her website so raw, so brutally honest they’re almost hard to look at.

Tipping the scales at 153kg last year, the 27 year old photographer made the decision to capture – photo by photo – her year long weight loss journey. Watching Kozerski ‘slim’ down in her photo series “Change Room” is nothing short of  addictive.  She shrinks before your eyes, an act which gives no insight into the huge changes to nutrition and exercise she embarked up on to lose weight:

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But those images  – as fascinating as they are – are not what everyone is talking about.

What left the world gobsmacked was her second photoseries “Half” where  Kozerski captures the raw emotion of becoming half her size.  Photographing herself naked in a range of poses and revealing the excess skin she now carries, the images are confronting and extremely raw.  In some Kozerski has tears rolling down her cheeks…

(Some photos NSFW)

...or for Worse

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But they are not tears of joy.  The Milwaukee native says her images shed light on the brutal truth of what it’s like to become half your size.

‘While I genuinely believed that my hard work and dedication would transform me into that “perfect” person of my dreams, the reality of what has resulted is quite the opposite. My experience contradicts what the media tends to portray. While it is easy to celebrate and appreciate the dramatic physical results of such an endeavor, underneath the layers of clothing and behind closed doors, quite a different reality exists.’

She’s a brave, brave woman. And we’ll be hearing from Julia here on Mamamia in a few weeks.

You can see more of Julia’s incredible photos on her website.