Photos of women in the mass media don't seem to leave much room for women who don't match its heavily Photoshopped concept of beauty, but photographer Jade Beall provides a healthy counterweight, using her photography to highlight just how beautiful the bodies of mothers truly are.
Beall's photography takes women in all of their beauty – thick and thin, smooth and wrinkly, tall and short. Her photos seem especially empowering for women who have been marked with stretchmarks by their pregnancies. On her website, she writes that her goal is “ to build self-esteem in a world that thrives off women feeling insecure“ and “to inspire future generations of women to be free from the unnecessary self-suffering and embrace their beauty just as they are.“
Her photos have generated controversy by some, and were temporarily removed from Facebook for featuring nudity, but that hasn't stopped her!
Image credit: Leticia Valverdes
