Venus. My first photography book is now available for purchase. shop.stemandthorn.com

Last April as I was flipping through magazines looking for inspiration for new photoshoots, as I had done hundreds of times before, and something hit me. Not physically, but emotionally.. or maybe it was morally. I flipped page, after page, after page, of this magazine, all of which contained women… women that had been “manufactured”. Not “manufactured” in the sense that they were created in a lab… well actually, yes, exactly like they were manufactured in a lab. A lab called “Photoshop”. And I asked myself, “at what point did we stop appreciating actual perfection in the form of a woman’s beauty in favor of a stylized non-existent version?”

This is not some traditional photographer’s manifesto about rising up against the tyranny that is Photoshop, rather its a photographer’s goal to challenge the “industry standard of beauty” that can only be attained through Photoshop. 

During my brief time in the beauty/fashion photography industry I was immediately turned off to the fact that I was EXPECTED to adhere to the “beauty standard” when editing photos. Eyes need to be “this” far apart. Noses need to be “this” narrow. Mouths… you get the point. When it was all said and done, I wasn’t posting photos of the person I just shot, I was creating a new person. 

I was being part of the problem.

Young women are conditioned at a young age that they aren’t innately beautiful, magazine “beauty” is the standard, and that they should spend their lives chasing that impossible goal. No one ever tells these girls that the “super-models” they are idolizing in these photos don’t even look like the “super-models” in these photos in real life.

I want to be part of the solution.  

Last April I realized I have a responsibility as a photographer, as an artist, as a human being, to display women as they were intended, with their natural, raw beauty. 

This book is the culmination of a journey that took a year and a half. I will cherish all the conversations had, the people met, and the sacrifices made along the journey.

The book is 82 pages of full color prints in a hard cover with dust jacket. 

Buy your copy now!!! shop.stemandthorn.com