‘A Beautiful Body’ Exploring Vulnerability As A Collective Continues: October Is Breast Cancer Awareness Month Three Years ago today, my son’s grandmother slipped into spirit world after a long battle with breast cancer. I never knew Carol. She became what the Universe is made of before her … Read More →
Category Archives: Photographing Love
9.7.2012 Redefining Beautiful: An Exploration Of Vulnerability As A Collective
Photographs & Essays of American Mothers by Jade Beall Redefining American Beauty To Help us Heal Old Stories. She stood barefoot with a fresh pedicure showing blood-red toenails on the white paper backdrop in my downtown, air-conditioned Tucson studio. She lifted her loose blouse over … Read More →
6.27.12 Preparing for “A Beautiful Body” Nude Photographs and Essays of American Mothers.
Today, equal parts excited and nervous, I photographed my first post-birth mother for my project ‘A Beautiful Body’. It was perfect that this project began with her, really. She is fiercely beautiful and as tender as a newborn baby. You would never know that under the thin layer of … Read More →
3.21.12 Photographing Behind The Veil
I am scared to share these photographs and writings with you. If asked why, I may be tempted to nonchalantly say I have no idea. Except that would be a lie. Deep down, I know why: Because I am a rebel with a cause. Because … Read More →
2.24.12 Photographing The Love Which Holds my Baby Boy
These are my first thoughts put to paper with a beautifully-perfect 7-pound-and-some-ounces baby attached to me, sucking at my breast. As I sleepily search for words to write to accompany the photographs I took last week when the entire family was in town to meet Sequoia, my … Read More →
1.30.12 Photographing the Exquisiteness of Pregnancy
It’s nearly time to part ways now. The honor of facilitating the making of a human body in my own body is nearly over. This belly will never be this exact belly ever again. My Son will never again receive nourishment from his umbilical cord. I … Read More →
1.6.12 Photographing a Tribe, a Family, a Clan: Your People
My life as I know it is about to change: forever. In about 4 weeks, most likely under the guidance & protection of the full moon of February 7th and surrounded by my own tribe, I will give birth to my son. I have no expectations … Read More →
1.2.12 Photographing Skin as Vulnerable As Yours
I have heard hundreds of confessions of sorrow by now. I have listened to thousands of stories of suffering. I have held in my very arms countless sisters and a few brothers as they wept and shared their feelings of utter unworthiness and despair. These confessions used to be only on … Read More →
11.11.11 Photographing The Practice of Happiness: Pregnant Self Portraits & A Goddess Friend Too
It’s scientifically proven that happiness makes the human heart grow younger. Happiness is the abundant side effect of being interconnected with those in our life that inspire us and to those we had no idea we could possibly love. Happiness is the practice of forgiving those who have “harmed” … Read More →
9.29.11 Photographing Goddesses. I Was Born To Rise
I was born on an insanely hot day during July in the Sonoran desert. Upon a bean bag chair sprawled on my Mother’s bedroom floor, I took my fist Breath. The midwife was called in the late afternoon and I came out with a cord wrapped around … Read More →
9.14.11 Photographing 2 Priestesses
I am in love with Those whom we have learned to judge. I am drawn to Those we are told to hate. I am best friends with the Ones whom we call names in the shadows but smile to in daylight. I am in love … Read More →
8.01.11 Photographing a Divine Española in the Sonoran Desert
It’s in west Africa where I feel the most beautiful. There are barely any mirrors in the places I seem to stay and visit. People do not react to my white skin and blond hair. Men easily and vocally appreciate the body which my entire life has been called, … Read More →