Although you know him best as Mr. Spock, Leonard Nimoy is an accomplished photographer. His second book (due out this month) called "The Full Body Project" celebrates the generously proportioned feminine form in a series of black and white photographs. The surprising images show a group of well-upholstered women dancing or in various languorous poses. Some images are meant to simulate famous paintings such as Matisse's "Dance" and Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase." Others simply show glorious, big naked women.

Nimoy says he was motivated to begin the project after a 250-pound woman approached him at a gallery and asked if he wanted to take pictures of her. When she arrived for the shoot, Nimoy said he was initially nervous.

"The nudity wasn't the problem," he told the New York Times, "but I'd never worked with that kind of a figure before. I didn't quite know how to treat her. I didn't want to do her some kind of injustice. I was concerned that I would present this person within the envelope of an art form."

After the initial images began to generate interest in later shows, Nimoy decided to pursue the project further, and eventually met up with Heather MacAllister, the founder and artistic director of Big Burlesque and the Fat Bottom Revue, a troupe of plus-size female performers in San Francisco. Sadly, MacAllister died from ovarian cancer in February of this year, but her images along with members of her troupe live on in the book.

"The average American woman, according to articles I've read, weighs 25 percent more than the models who are showing the clothes they are being sold," Nimoy said, "So, most women will not be able to look like those models. But they're being presented with clothes, cosmetics, surgery, diet pills, diet programs, therapy, with the idea that they can aspire to look like those people. It's a big, big industry. Billions of dollars. And the cruelest part of it is that these women are being told, 'You don't look right.' "

But in Nimoy's book, they look just fine. "The Full Body Project" will be available later this month on Amazon.