Anne Noggle often wears a tiara, and not much else, when she photographs herself. In her 1986 Stellar by Starlight Series, she emerges nude from a cloud of steam and becomes the fantasy object of strapping young men covered in nothing but soapsuds. Noggle, now in her mid-70s, celebrates every wrinkle, scar, and age spot on her body-she photographs the "saga of the fallen flesh," as she calls it.

Her photographs are mostly of older women, including her friends and relatives, and, of course, herself. She focuses on the tension between the individual subjects' human spirit and the inevitable ticking of Father Time. The overall theme of Noggle's photographs is youth betrayed by age.

Her work is never disrespectful nor is the intent ever to flatter-it is just brutally honest. Her pictures are often humorous and always come from a position of strength and courage (although she swears it doesn't take any courage at all); they simply pay homage to the ageing process-something Noggle says people have a hard time accepting.

"Many people see old age as a terrible time, like a leaf drying up and blowing off a tree. I don't see it that way at all. I want to talk in a good way about age," says Noggle, "I want to show the human side, so that it overcomes any sort of feelings about being ancient...it's actually very freeing."

Noggle remembers the experience her sister had after having her cataracts removed. She could see everything so clearly, including her own face in the mirror, and contemplated buying a hammer so that she could break all of the mirrors in her house.

"I'm not shocked by my own visage because I find it interesting and photographic, but if I thought of it otherwise, I suppose I would scream 'ugh' as well," Noggle jokes.

"I was about sixty when I did the Stellar by Starlight Series, and so many people just don't think you have sensuality or sexuality at that age. Men don't whistle at you anymore and you are no longer an object. I wanted to do something where I was a star. It isn't about me personally; it's about aging," comments Noggle, "Just because you look different, doesn't mean you're not the same person on the inside. I'm going to live until I die, and I'm enjoying myself."

Noggle began her photography career at the age of 47, after her days as a captain in the U.S. Air Force from 1953-1959. She was also an airshow pilot, a flight instructor and a crop duster. In 1943-44 she was in the Women Airforce Service Pilots. She studied with Van Deren Coke at the University of New Mexico, where she received degrees in art and art history, and where she is now an adjunct professor of art. She worked as curator of photography for the Fine Arts Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe between 1970 and 1976. She has received three NEA Fellowship grants in photography and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her books include Silver Lining: Photographs by Anne Noggle (1983); For God, Country, and the Thrill of It: Women Airforce Service Pilots in World War II (1990); and A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II (1994).

"When you're flying, you are constantly reading your student's reactions and you can even tell by the back of their necks if they're going to get sick; you become very in tune to other people," remembers Noggle, "I wasn't real enthusiastic about photography at first, but God, it was almost the first day a print came up in the tray that I knew I found what I was going to do forever...when I began photographing people, that was really it for me. I loved the expressions. I photographed older people because if you've only lived a short period of time, it doesn't show on your face, and I thought the faces were beautiful."

Noggle chose to photograph people rather than landscapes because she says a picture isn't as complete without a human being, who you can get up close to and really study. You have to talk to people in order to bring out true expressions and feelings, and landscape is static in that sense, she says.

"She's very unflinching," says Harriet Fowler, director of UK's Art Museum, "She'll show what middle-aged and elderly people look like...stooped posture, thinning hair, and all of that, but there's always some respect and affection for her subjects. It's quite arresting and powerful, yet funny."

Noggle will be speaking at the University of Kentucky as part of The Robert C. May Photography Endowment Lecture Series, which is an annual series that honors internationally known photographers and photography historians in the field. There is currently an exhibit of her work at UK's Art Museum to accompany the lecture, and it will be displayed for a few weeks after the lecture as well. Included in this exhibit is Noggle's self portrait series on her 1975 face-lift. These powerful images show us the scars and stitches that result from the desire to defy time.

"What I like about her work is its unvarnished directness. Her series on her face-lift is pretty powerful. That's exactly the opposite response most women would have. They would hide until all the stitches and bruises were gone," says Dennis Carpenter, an associate professor of art at UK. "She's a very genuine person and her honesty shows through in her work, plus she's a great teacher."

"The premise of the series is to give the arts community and the community at large access to the best and most exciting photographers and critics and photography historians that are currently working, and Anne Noggle, of course, would be one of those," says Rachael Sadinsky, curator of UK's Art Museum. "She's a well-respected contemporary photographer whose work is inventive, self revelatory, and provocative...they're [her pictures] thought provoking both as photographic images and for the content they reveal."

Noggle will be speaking about her career as a photographer and her brief struggles with the medium, such as ignoring the concept of light in her first pictures, and her transformation from panoramas of women in their surroundings to wide-angle photos of friends and family. She will talk about how she would walk by the photography office as a student and see all the guys sitting with their feet up on desks and think, "You talk, I'm going to go in the darkroom and print." She will have many stories to share, along with examples of her work.

"I tell my prints, when I pack them up to go someplace, 'You're on your own now, the rest of it is in the eye of the beholder,'" says Noggle, "Maybe I ought to wear my tiara when I come to speak."

Anne Noggle will be speaking on October 30 at the Worsham Theater in UK's Student Center at 4 pm. Her work is currently on display at the University's Art Museum. The lecture series is free and open to the public, for more information call 257-5716.