The Huffington Post this morning (01/10/17) reports on a series of portraits of women who have had mastectomies. The series, photographed by UK photographer Ami Barwell, is being used as part of the Stand Up to Cancer campaign. Barwell says that she ‘wanted to shoot this project to raise awareness and show how the defiance of women who remain equally beautiful without breasts’. The photographs, shot in a contextless, noir style, are accompanied by short quotations by the women who describe their experience, most commonly in terms of defiance, celebration and renewed self-esteem.
(Click on thumbnails for larger view.)
Barwell describes herself as a ‘Portrait and Rock ‘n’ Roll’ photographer’ and her work as;
Striking and atmospheric, honest & sexy; her photographs seek out and capture their subjects’ soul.
Barwell’s romantic, ‘gritty’ aesthetic is perhaps at odds with the lived experience of breast cancer but is suited to what some will see as a difficult or even taboo subject and it plays its part in echoing the gutsiness of the women she portrays.
