PERFECTLY IMPERFECT
I began this project as an exploration into my personal feelings about feminine beauty and identity when my daughter asked me if I thought I was pretty. Answering this question was more difficult than I’d expected. In short, my answer was that I felt “perfectly imperfect,” because beauty comes from within. I feel that beauty is more complicated than our physicality, and includes our mental, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and social selves as well. This is what I wanted to capture in photographs of women, their inner beauty emerging from their physical body. Even though these are not self-portraits, each image resonates with my life experience at one time or another. The ebbs and flows of womanhood are somewhat universal. Beauty is a personal and private journey for every woman to learn to live in her own skin, letting social expectations fall by the wayside, and allowing her own sense of beauty and individuality to emerge.