Growing into a mature woman (mature in mind not in age… just putting that out there). I feel much more confident about my own beauty, my own flaws & my own individual features. With this I’ve also grown to admire & appreciate beauty in other women. As a child I grew up in a very Caucasian based school & I always wanted the blonde barbies, the white baby dolls & I longed for smooth, straight, thin hair like my little Caucasian friends. This went on pretty much all the way through high school too & it wasn’t until my college years that I started to embrace my thick curly hair & the fact that being ethnic is pretty damn cool.
About 4 years ago I discovered Pinterest & as soon as I got my head around it I created my Goddess Board & it quickly became & remains my favourite. It celebrates, through other people’s photography, the beauty & ethnicity of women from all around the world. Ethnic, Caucasian, tribal, big, small, bald, old, young whatever it is. I just think they are all beautiful in their own ways. They come from many walks of life, whether it be quite a regular life like mine or yours to being animal herders, Eskimos or field workers. They go about their daily lives not knowing the beauty that they hold & I just find it so refreshing to look at these naturally beautiful women from the around the world who, sadly, go unnoticed behind the leggy models, the lip fillers & the bum implants.
Earlier in the year, my sister told me to check out Mihaela Noroc’s (below) Atlas of beauty. I was so excited to see the project when she explained what it was & my expectations were not let down. Mihaela is a female photographer from Romania & in 2014 she visited 37 countries photographing the native women. The result is a stunning collection of photographs that express the diversity & ethnicity of people. It’s such a fantastic idea (great minds do think alike after all) & I cannot imagine the amazing experience & encounters she must have had along the way.
