Cancer survivors have posed in a series of intimate photos showing what their bodies look like after surviving the illness.
Living Beauty, an organization that supports women with cancer, commissioned the powerful photographs to shed light on how the disease changed the lives and appearances of those who went through it.
Photographer Tasya van Ree worked over three days with a group of women who have all survived various types of cancer. Each one of them can be seen in a different pose, some of them choosing to display their scars.
Powerful: Cancer survivors have posed in a series of intimate photos showing what their bodies look like after the illness
Meaning: Living Beauty, an organization that supports women with cancer, commissioned the powerful photographs to shed light on how the disease changed the lives and appearances of those who went through it
Stories: Photographer Tasya van Ree photographed a group of women who have all survived various types of cancer
Marks: Each one of the women can be seen in a different pose, some of them choosing to display the scars left by the illness
Van Ree, who worked with the women over the course of three days, views the photo series as capturing the ‘reality’ of the women’s experiences with cancer, and ‘how they have inextricably become one with it, one with the lessons, the understandings, the gifts’, as the photographer told Refinery29.
On its website, Living Beauty has a section titled The Gift, where women who have survived cancer talk candidly about how the illness has impacted them.
Some list how going through the disease has in part changed their lives for the better, although it can seem counter-intuitive, by turning them into determined advocates or showing them they can rely on their loved ones if they need support.
Van Ree a friend of Living Beauty’s founder Amie Satchu, took the project one step further with her series of photos, which will be made into an exhibit called The Gift, to be shown at Los Angeles’ Eric Buterbaugh Gallery.
‘Being able to work so closely with these women who have endured extraordinary amounts of physical and emotional pain, has undeniably opened my heart up in so many different ways, and has left me with so much inspiration and love,’ the photographer added.
She now hopes people looking at the pictures will be left with a ‘deep sense of resonance’.
Project: Van Ree a friend of Living Beauty’s founder Amie Satchu, took the project one step further with her series of photos, which will be made into an exhibit called The Gift, to be shown at Los Angeles’ Eric Buterbaugh Gallery
Message: Van Ree, who worked with the women over the course of three days, views the photo series as capturing the ‘reality’ of the women’s experiences with cancer, and ‘how they have inextricably become one with it
Candid: ‘Being able to work so closely with these women who have endured extraordinary amounts of physical and emotional pain, has undeniably opened my heart up in so many different ways,’ the photographer said