October is breast cancer awareness month worldwide. All around the world people spread awareness of this by sharing symptoms, advice, and ways we can raise money.
Eleonora Ghioldi is an Argentinian documentary photographer and filmmaker, she explores issues of social justice in private and public affairs from the perspective of women. She has worked primarily in Argentina where she was born and in the United States immigrated to study photography since returning to Buenos Aries in 2018, she is currently involved with the communities of activist sociologists and scientists.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month allows many people to share their stories and be able to provide advice and support to other people. Eleonora has created a project called The Breast Cancer Project which shows her documenting her time with breast cancer. These images are personal and inspiring showing the true life of living with breast cancer.
© Eleonora Ghioldi- the breast cancer project
Women should check their breasts regularly and you do not need any training for this, and it is as easy as using the TLC method. Touch your breast, can feel anything new or unusual, look for changes does anything look different to you and check for any new or unusual changes with your doctor.
Over a third of women in the UK do not check their breasts regularly for potential signs of breast cancer. Checking your breasts only takes a few minutes, everyone will have their own way of doing this and looking for changes.
Another photographer who is spreading awareness for breast cancer is Charise Isis. Her project is named The Grace Project and is a series of portraits of women who undergo mastectomies to survive breast cancer. Images of them show courage, beauty, and grace in the face of breast cancer, making the models as confident and beautiful as they are. The grace project is still ongoing and anyone who is available and wants to spread awareness for breast cancer can join in. You need to be comfortable in showing your scars, your vulnerability, your courage and your unique beauty.
For the images the model will stand in front of the camera revealing scars, allowing each of her subjects a transformative experience, giving them permission to step into self-acceptance and share their stories of the scars on their bodies.
© charise Isis- The grace project
The goal for The Grace Project is to photograph 800 women, the approximate number of new breast cancer diagnoses in the U.S. every day. So far Charise has photographed over 600 portraits towards this goal.
Charise is a fine art photographer and her career spans over 20 years, she focuses on the feminine principle and uses her camera to explore themes of self-esteem and body image to shift the narrow and impossible beauty standards that exist within our culture.
