From YouTube: “A Beautiful Body Project shows truthful images of women to inspire feeling irreplaceably beautiful as a counter-balance to the airbrushed photo shopped imagery that dominates mainstream media. Jade’s dream is to inspire future generations of women to be free from the unnecessary self-suffering and embrace their beauty just as they are.”
In this almost 20 minute video Jade Beall talks about her journey of photographing women – and how her pregnancy (and her post-pregnancy body) gave her the perfect “ah-ha” moment and allowed her to become a source for breaking the cycle and starting to change up the narrative when it comes to showcasing the female form.
Words she heard from her models included: “Thank you for showing me I belong … I’m irreplaceably beautiful” and with each photograph spotlighted during her talk, Beall shares another story of feeling “too fat or too skinny or too small breasted or too large breasted or too pimply or too wrinkly or too old or too dark or too pale …”. The project, for all involved, ” … was like therapy”.
As Jade scrolls through her photos and tells snippets of each woman’s story you can’t help but be caught up in the excitement of her message of “I see you – you belong here … let’s be the example to our beautiful children”.
“It’s about uniting – celebrating it all … instead of being trained to hate the girl in the billboard, know that she too has known pain and she too has vulnerability.” That’s a strong message.
Find her book here.