Just the Girls: Real Beauty is about celebrating beauty. Our two photographers are both gorgeous teenagers, and they are immersed in a culture that tells them that perfect hair, thin bodies, straight teeth, and symmetrical faces are all that matters. But we know that’s not true! We want to look for inner beauty, beauty that comes from strength, courage, faith, and the overcoming of difficult circumstances.
We’ve met and interviewed women who know what real beauty is because they’ve cultivated that knowledge. Maybe they’ve been through a medical crisis, lost a loved one, had to wait for a son or husband to come home from war, had to find peace in a storm. Maybe they didn’t know what real beauty was until they had a child with special needs, or finally overcame an old hurt. But now they know, and they want to share their beautiful story.
Read through the blog posts so far and you’ll find a little beauty with a contagious smile who happens to live with scoliosis and an impending surgery. You’ll find a woman who was encouraged to abort one of her triplets so that the other two would live. You’ll meet a woman who has started not one but two successful businesses, and a woman who finally, after twenty years, forgave her family member of an atrocity committed against her. You’ll also see photographs of women and girls who are beautiful because they possess personalities that shine beauty, they shine so brightly that you won’t be able to contain a smile. And you’ll read about the bond beautiful women share.
The project started small, but it is growing to include as many beautiful women as Faith and Aubrianah can photograph in the time they have! They have visited the places where women work together, party together, and dance together. They’ve had a tea party photo shoot with a fabulous group of little girls, and they met with a group of older girls at a nursing home this week to schedule one with them, too!
We have been blessed to meet such beautiful girls and hear their stories! We hope to eventually turn the project into a book, and possibly do a photography art show! We are very excited about the road the project is taking us down.
We hope that you will schedule your own Real Beauty shoot soon, because we know that you have a story to tell! Please contact me via the comments area here, the facebook page you can link to from the home page, or email me to set up your Real Beauty shoot. It will cost you NOTHING but your time, your permission to publish your image, and your story! Think about what makes you beautiful, and then contact me!
Thank you, beautiful girls!
