The Atlas of Beauty

The Atlas of Beauty is a project created and implemented by the Romanian photographer Mihaela Noroc, for which she has been travelling the world since 2013, in order to highlight beauty in all its diversity through portraits of women.

Biography of the photographer.

Mihaela Noroc is Romanian and grew up mainly in Bucharest. As her family was of modest means, she was often forced to move. As a result, Mihaela had to change schools and make new friends very often, which she says gave her the ability to adapt to new environments and new people.

From childhood she was surrounded by the paintings of her father, an artist. It was he who gave her first hand film camera for her 16th birthday, with which she was introduced to photography. Her first models were her mother and her sister, whose portraits she developed at night in her bathroom, which had been transformed into a darkroom.

She began to study photography in college, but dropped out due to lack of encouragement and confidence in her work.

Then, she decided to work in other fields for a few years.

"The Atlas of Beauty" Project

The birth of "The Atlas of Beauty” project : a trip to Ethiopia

Unfulfilled by her work, it was in 2013 during a life-changing trip to Ethiopia that she decided to take up photography again and make it her profession.

While she brought her camera as a tourist, Mihaela was amazed to discover so much beauty and diversity among women in one country.

She decided to draw attention to women around the world through her photographs, to highlight their beauty and diversity. The Atlas of Beauty was born.

The Project

At the very beginning of her project, Mihaela travelled the world very modestly and with her own savings.

With this project, the photographer wants to highlight the diversity of beauty in women.

To do this, she travelled to more than 50 countries (preferably overland) and speaks five languages to photograph women of the world, regardless of their ethnicity or social status.

Her photographs are exclusively very simple portraits where any kind of staging, unless it is natural, is absent. Through them, she wishes to tell the story of the women she meets and expose their reality to the world. Therefore, some of her portraits are accompanied by a few lines in which she tells the personal story of the model.

For her, beauty is not the sexualized one we see in fashion magazines, but something much deeper, personal and authentic. With her project and the portraits of women she publishes and exhibits, she wants to encourage and help women to assume their own beauty, regardless of the social pressures they may encounter. Therefore, she never retouches the women she photographs

Although challenging, this project has not only allowed her to regain her self-confidence, but also to grow through the encounters she continues to make.

In 2017, her project became more concrete with the publication of her first book of portraits of women of the world: "The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits".

Recognition

Today, her project and the portraits of women she posts on her social networks are followed by millions of people on her various social networks.

Her work has attracted the attention of many media such as the Huffington Post, CNN, Forbes etc... as well as major companies such as Mercedes, with whom she has collaborated.

Nowadays

Thanks to the popularity of her project, she collects donations that allow her to continue her travels independently and accompanied by her family.

She is reportedly working on a second portrait album, this time with many more photos of mothers with their children, echoing her personal life.

References

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