HEN JADE BEALL
published a series of
self-portraits of her
semi-nude postpartum body online — and a followup semi-nude photo of a friend
that got thousands of “likes” and
shares from her photography studio’s Facebook page — she realized
she’d struck a nerve. Hundreds of
mothers wrote to her, hoping Beall
would be willing to take portraits
of them “just as they were” as
well. The photographer, and mother of one, was so moved by these
intense reactions that she complied, in a big way.
W
Now, these women’s photos
(Beall has captured more than 50
moms and counting), and written
accounts of their journeys from
self-doubt to body confidence, will
appear in A Beautiful Body, a book
that Beall is bringing to fruition
via crowd-funding and help from
volunteers. Put together, these
images are meant to show mothers as they really look, imperfect
but no less beautiful for what society might consider their physical
“flaws.”
The photographer, whose baby
boy Sequoia is now 16 months
old, says the concept has roots
in doubts that have haunted her
throughout her life — and hit her
particularly hard after she gave