Tucson photographer Jade Beall 'loves people more than they have ever loved themselves'

Tucson photographer Jade Beall faced down a lifetime of body image issues four years ago, though she didn't know it at the time.

She took a nude portrait of herself five weeks postpartum — and about 50 pounds heavier than she'd ever been — holding her new baby.

Then she posted it online. No filters. No Photoshop. 

It was a way for Beall, a 37-year-old Tucson native, to expand her portfolio with images that showed body diversity, but it ended up being the catalyst for something much more. 

The blonde, blue-eyed photographer and dancer had always struggled with her body image. But, having a baby multiplied them. As a new mother, she was sleep deprived and had cellulite on her body. 

"When I first looked at those photos I wanted to pass out. They were so hard for me to look at, but now I look at them and I just see such a beautiful woman that's a new mother," Beall said. "I was unable to truly face my decades of self-loathing until I took that self portrait and didn't Photoshop it...Previously I always Photoshopped any photo of myself...All the wrinkles and dark circles were gone. But, now I don't and it's so freeing because I'm ok with the way I look. I can be honest with 'this is who I am.'"

Putting herself out there — on social media sites and her own website — opened the floodgates for women who wanted to be seen and feel good in their own skin.

"When I did that, I received hundreds of emails from women giving them permission to look at themselves and I realized there was this huge need and desire for truthful body positivity, especially for mothers, in such an often exhausting, vulnerable, confusing time in a culture that only celebrates the bounce-back mother and everyone else is a failure," Beall said. "I didn't know it was such a huge, huge need to be celebrated in that moment of post-giving-birth and not feeling like a failure."

Now, she's on a mission.

Beall says she is unapologetically breaking the rules by showing that all people are beautiful exactly how they are. And that all people have the right to feel beautiful, no matter their body type.

Facebook has banned her several times because users have reported photos — usually of breastfeeding mothers — as offensive. But, she says that isn't going to stop her. 

"I'm celebrating people we've been told not to celebrate," Beall said. "I'm saying a woman is beautiful just the way she is. She doesn't need to aspire to be somebody else...It upsets people, but I'm never gonna stop. I'm gonna keep pushing it."

Beall's photographs feature women, new mothers (often in the nude, with their babies), grandmothers and breastfeeding mothers. She does not Photoshop the stretch marks, belly rolls or wrinkles.

"We're taught at a very young age that we should look like anybody but ourselves. And we celebrate one body type, one age and if we don't fit into that it's a constant struggle and competition, which puts women at odds with each other and divides sisterhood," Beall said. "It makes a lot of us suffer until we're like in our 80s and we're finally like 'I'm just gonna accept this before I die. I'm gonna love myself for a little bit."

Beall has recently added the elderly in her repertoire — both couples and singles.

One photo features a couple in their 70s, embracing in the nude. They met in their 50s and have been together for 20 years.

"It's beautiful and inspiring to people my age, in their late 30s, to see that as an example of beauty," Beall said. "Like, what if we thought that wrinkles were a sign of a true queenly matriarch beauty and a little girl is like 'one day I'll have wrinkles that show I've lived a privileged long life?' But, instead we're told we should be ashamed and fix them and change them and be someone we're not. It's exhausting."

Some struggle with the concept that smart can be considered beautiful and they ask Beall, "What if you're just a strong, powerful, intelligent woman? Isn't that enough?"

Beall's answer: "If you're a strong, powerful, intelligent woman, there's absolutely no way you're gonna be anything but beautiful. I don't understand why it has to be one way or the other. To me, it's a whole package deal."

In the studio

When people arrive at Beall's studio in the living room of her home, they are immediately surrounded by her photos covering the walls.

Beall spends time chatting with each client to make them feel comfortable before they get undressed — if they do — and take their place on the large rolled out paper that serves as a background in her photos.

 "When people get on my backdrop they want to feel special. Our culture is so good at trying to make us feel like we're not special and worthy of feeling good in your skin, whether you're differently abled or whatever shape or whatever age you are," Beall says. "When there's only one body type celebrated it puts us in competition. It's just evil. I'd way rather live a life of sisterhood and feeling good about myself and seeing the beauty in the women around me." 

When Stacy Gray arrived at her photo shoot with Beall, she was a newly divorced woman, "learning how to be a strong single mother" to her two children.

She was also Beall's first photo shoot after posting her own self portrait.

"I was so grateful to have brought forth these beautiful children, but now that they were no longer laying in my lap and I was standing alone facing myself as an individual, I began to hear the train of society's judgments on my body and it was coming fast and with a mission to destroy my self love," Gray said.

The experience was a "coming to" and a "waking up out of surviving into thriving" for Gray and her children.

"Our faith in our little family was sealed that day, under those bright lights," Gray said. 

Many women show up nervous and take a little warming up before they feel comfortable, Beall said. 

That wasn't the case for Gray. 

"I wasn't nervous, just ready to be witnessed," Gray said. "I was hungry and aching to be seen...So I undressed, picked up my children and began to unfold the layers of shame from my body and laid it down in front of that sacred lens."

Once she saw the photos she said she nearly threw up bracing herself for negative comments online. She thought for sure she'd see at least one saying she was disgusting.

"Guess what. No one ever said that," Gray said. "In fact, they said thank you. When people said negative things about me, I grew stronger and more trasparent. I was truly nude and there was nothing left to apologize for. This is just me."

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One of Gray's photos is now on a billboard as part of a body positivity campaign in London, Germany and Africa. 

Gray said the photos left a lasting impression on her children that their journey through her into the world matters and encourages others. 

Lupita Chavez first heard of Beall's photography when a mutual friend sent her a message about it, saying she thought she'd be perfect for Beall's Beautiful Body Project.

"Jade's story really clicked with me, but maybe differently," Chavez recalled. "I was truly this confident woman who never actually felt beautiful. My confidence was based on my brains, skills, friends and accomplishments. In a weird way, my changing body from childbirth didn't effect me the way it did others. Motherhood changed me."

Chavez called her daughter, Cheyenne Baum, that night to get her opinion. Her daughter was excited and told her mom she thought she should do it. So, Chavez wrote Beall that night and told her story.

The shoot was "amazing and inspiring" for Chavez. She was excited to be doing something that would "terrify others" and was having fun at the same time.

"I've never liked getting my photo taken," Chavez said. "Jade welcomed me in with so much love and warmth. In addition to weight issues, I have psoriasis. She saw my skin as art...For the first time, I felt genuinely beautiful and truly comfortable in my own skin. That's such a gift. I'll be forever grateful."

When she first saw the images Beall posted, Chavez was "blown away."

"Here's the deal as I see it: Our daily visual impression of ourselves is usually in a mirror. So, first, we're not smiling or laughing or even just interested or animated the way we are in the presence of others. Second, we're usually putting on makeup or doing our hair, which means, we're looking at ourselves with the express purpose of finding flaws to fix," Chavez said. "So, the experience of seeing myself in photographs taken by someone who's entire being is set on bringing out your beauty not just for others to see, but for you to see? I wish everyone could experience that."

The effect of seeing themselves

Beall edits each shoot down to about 200 photos, so clients can see a progression of the shoot.

"Typically women leave feeling wonderful after the shoot," Beall said. "They're like, 'Yes I did it. I'm beautiful and strong.' Then they get the photos and they're like, 'Oh...ok.' Because they're not used to seeing themselves naked, only in a mirror."

Women usually look at their photos again a week later and like about five of them. A month later it's ten to 15 and a few months later, they like a whole bunch of them, Beall said.

"My body? Well, I still see it for what it is. I'm a big girl. Hell, I'm fat," Chavez said. "But I knew that. What I didn't know was that my whole face changes when I laugh. My eyes light up. When I'm at peace my face is soft, welcoming. I saw beauty."

"It's learning to see yourself with different eyes. I'm not Photoshopping you. I am lighting you to show your best essence, but I'm not hiding the things we've been taught to hide," Beall said. "I'm gonna showcase them."

Word has gotten out

Through Facebook and Instagram, Beall's work has gained popularity around the world. 

Instagram recently featured one of Beall's photographs of a breastfeeding mother for World Breastfeeding Week and it got major attention — more than a million likes.

She started photographing breastfeeding when she was working on her book, "The Bodies of Mothers," which showcases unretouched photos of mothers. It wasn't what she set out to do but so many of the moms had their breastfeeding babies in the studio, she started photographing them together.

"It's helping normalize it and helping women understand it better and to not feel alone," Beall said. "Women see my photos and write me the most beautiful emails so it helps them realize what they're doing is ok and others are doing it." 

Earlier this year Beall went to London to photograph new mothers for a documentary called "The Tenth Month" — which is about the first month of motherhood — after being discovered by an advertising company there who saw her work on Facebook. 

She will travel to Switzerland to help scientists who want to understand motherhood and body positivity.

And each month Beall goes to different cities to speak at Mommy-Con, a holistic baby conference.

She also started an international movement "The Beautiful Body Project," in which female photographers, videographers and journalists in seven countries have come together to photograph women and tell their stories. Its mission is to create awareness of the issues women face about birth, aging, cancer, eating disorders, breast feeding, c-sections, miscarriage, loss, domestic violence, sexual abuse and more.

All women want to 'feel worthy of being called beautiful'

On a self-funded trip, Beall went to Greece to photograph Syrian refugees. While on that trip, she also photographed women in Israel and Turkey. 

During her travels, she has noticed one commonality among women across cultures is the desire to love themselves.

"The deep desire for self love, like, unwavering self love and to want to feel worthy of being called beautiful," Beall said. "99.9 percent of the women I photograph would not say they are beautiful and that's true in every country I've photographed." 

She receives hundreds of calls and emails from women who want to be photographed and from women around the world who want to thank her for the work she does. They also follow her on Facebook, where her photo page has nearly 150,000 likes, and on Instagram, where she has close to 68,000 followers.  

"Jade Beall has an innate ability to love people for all they are," Gray said. "This is what Jade does. The camera and photos is the medium in which she educates the world about self love, but what she truly does is love people more than they have ever loved themselves, which reminds them how to fully embrace this life and all we are as humans, and especially as women."