A young woman has compiled a book of portraits of breast cancer survivors – and it’s as empowering as it is stunning.
29-year old Australian Katelyn Carey had a pre-emptive mastectomy, but it wasn’t until three years after, when her husband took photos of her, that she began to feel beautiful again.
The photos had such a huge effect on her self-esteem that she decided to take photos of other people who had been through the same thing.
“It took those photos for me to feel whole and beautiful again,” she told the Daily Mail. “So I took them and tried to create something that I thought would have helped me.”
From there she spent three years meeting others who had underwent mastectomies, photographing and interviewing them. This journey would eventually become her book, Beauty After Breast Cancer.
“This book is the portraits and stories of 33 women, showing what different surgeries and reconstructions (or not) really look like,” reads the blurb on the book’s Facebook page. “Here are 33 beautiful, strong and feminine women and the stories of how they held onto or even rediscovered their confidence, strength and beauty. Beauty After Breast Cancer shows women facing surgery the changes in their appearances that they need to adjust to, and the changes in their self-confidence and sense of beauty that they don’t need to make at all.
“For here are 33 women, seen through the unbiased lens of a camera that is not coloured by grief, fear, or self-consciousness. They are beautiful, and not at all lessened by their experiences.”
And it’s making a huge difference in the lives of women who have been through a mastectomy or reconstructive surgery.
“One woman told me, ‘It’s like my own private support group, I pick it up and I don’t feel as alone’. I describe it as a medical resource book, a letter from your best friend and the mastectomy version of the Sports Illustrated magazine all in one.”
How utterly beautiful are these strong, powerful women?
