Innocean Berlin has launched a new campaign to promote the world’s first permanent exhibition of photography by the legendary Robert Capa.

The campaign, created for the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Centre in Budapest, takes a fresh perspective on the conversation gripping the creative world right now: AI generated images.

Innocean has produced a series of images contrasting the powerful photographs taken by Robert with versions produced by an AI image generator which is fed a description of the original photo. 

Robert’s celebrated photo of a shaved woman being followed by a police officer and a huge crowd during WW2 is placed alongside a poorly executed version generated using AI. Other famous Robert shots are also placed next to clumsy AI-generated versions. Each image ends with the line: “Machines don’t see the world as humans do.” 

Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist Robert Capa is considered one of the greatest photojournalists of all time. He once said: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough”. Robert believed that the photographer’s mission was to be right next to the action, witnessing life. 

The campaign leans into this belief, highlighting the importance of the human eye and the photographer’s interaction with real-life situations – something AI can never replicate.  While some see AI as the future of image generation, the campaign aims to demonstrate that the value of human photography outweighs the benefits offered by this technology. 

Robert was the only photographers landing with the first wave of troops on Omaha Beach to document D-Day and throughout his career he captured extraordinary images of combat, producing images of the Spanish Civil War, Chinese resistance to Japan and World War II as well as events including the founding of Israel in 1948, the first Indochina war and documenting film productions. 

The ad campaign launches on May 22nd in Europe, predominantly  in Hungary, and the exhibition launches on June 6th at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Centre in Budapest.

István Virágvölgyi, Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Centre artistic director, said, “While we are always excited by the emergence of new imaging technologies, the consequences of the introduction of artificial intelligence seem unpredictable and somewhat worrying. Nevertheless, we are certain that machines will not be able to replace the kind of human vision that the great photojournalist Robert Capa embraced to passionately witness and report on important events in the world. We believe that it will always be more engaging to talk to a human being than a robot, and that a photograph taken by a real person will give us more insight into the human experience than AI-generated images.” 

Ricardo Wolff, executive creative director at Innocean Berlin, said, “Robert was the first photographer at the D-Day landing due to his courage and his passion, two adjectives that set humans apart from any sort of artificial intelligence. And that’s the truth we’re clinging onto to launch this campaign: nothing beats the human experience. We’re extremely honoured to help our colleagues at RCCP in this historical moment.” 

Although rare, we all have the thought of quitting photography at one point or another. Despite being young, I have been told to quit several times already, all before even starting. In this article, I want to highlight some valuable reasons why and when you should consider quitting photography.

Knowing When to Quit

I am a big fan of quitting. At the same time, I am also a fan of giving everything my best shot. With this duality in mind, I try to keep a healthy balance between knowing when to continue pushing and when to call it quits and move on. This applies to both private and business decisions. Just like you should know when to quit on your partner, you should know when to quit a profession. It is never an easy decision, and it will absolutely have an initially negative effect on you, but in the long term, you will end up feeling better and more energetic in your new venture.

Photography is great, and I encourage most people to give it their best shot in almost every case. I have gone through living on baked beans and bread for some time in order to become a photographer. I can’t say it is over either, as I continue living in my studio, which is negatively impacting my mental health. That said, a studio is one of the best investments I have made so far. It is located in the heart of the city, has great daylight, and is super comfortable to shoot in. All of that equates to a pretty penny, but it isn’t a baked beans and bread situation anymore. It would be much more economical to follow a different route and have better living standards than what I have now, however, that would mean quitting one of the greatest things in life: photography. So far, so good, I am not planning to quit. However, here are some instances when you might:

Is It a Burden?

Burden over passion If you are a professional creative, you will know for sure that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There’s a lot to being a profitable image creator, and sometimes it means having to suck up to people above you as well as do as you’re told. This is normal, especially when the industry is notorious for treating beginners like garbage. However, there’s a limit to everything. If you’re feeling like your photography is more of a burden and there is no enjoyment, you should consider calling it quits. Before doing that, though, try different gear, genres, and subjects. Another great way to break out of this is to travel. I am a big believer in traveling for inspiration and working abroad. For some, it might mean going to a different state or city, for others hopping on a Ryanair flight and flying to Stockholm. I am the latter, as there are certain cities such as Stockholm that refresh my creativity and make me inspired and ready to take on new challenges. Just by changing the environment around you, even for a few days, you can easily get new inspiration. However, if that doesn’t work, and the mere thought of being behind the camera frustrates and burdens you, maybe it’s time to quit.

Speaking of burden, I want to highlight the importance of your art not being a burden to the people closest to you. I am fortunate enough to be relatively young and yet not have a partner or children. However, it is almost painful to see people burdening their whole families and taking from them to pursue a rather selfish purpose of achieving their individual goals. If photography directly burdens your family and relatives, especially financially, I suggest putting it off for a while. That said, I suggest disregarding the usual naysayers. Coming from a fairly strict and traditional middle-class family, there was and still is quite a disbelief that this can work. So I had to make it work and push to book paying gigs as early as 16.

Is It A Competition, And Are You the Bad Guy On The Internet?

Another reason for quitting or at least putting photography off for a while is if you find yourself competing and constantly comparing your work with other photographers. On the surface, this might seem like something natural and normal, but it really isn’t. And while every photographer did or does this to some degree, it can become an unhealthy downward spiral quickly. With the rise of social media and Facebook critique groups in particular, I find that there are some photographers who only comment on others’ work while offering no substantial feedback or commentary. Some of the people whom I coached in the past have complained about this problem, and my advice was to either quit Facebook groups or leave photography for good.

The Pressure Is On, Don’t Crumble Under It

The pressure is on, and there has never been such a high volume of excellent work produced and shown. Comparing yourself to someone who has done photography for a decade is easy because they are seen as the pro who achieved the goals you want to achieve. However, setting yourself unrealistic expectations and then trying to imitate them with the wrong parameters in mind is simply impossible. Copying work is not a problem if it helps you learn; it only becomes a problem when it turns into an unhealthy battle between creatives to get the next best client. This is toxic not only for you but also for other creatives, and it has no place in this industry. If you’re the person who is gaslighting, excessively criticizing, or being overly negative towards people such as yourself, I suggest you leave for a while and come back with more constructivism in mind. At the end of the day, it is impossible to rank creatives, as each and every one of us has a unique style and vision. There is no 10-step method to becoming a great photographer; everyone must follow their own unique path.

Closing Thoughts

Quitting photography is a personal decision that only you can make. It is an incredibly fun and rewarding career, and despite all the hardships, I see it paying off every day. However, if you’re in financial trouble, have poor mental health, and have unhealthy competition with others, perhaps consider quitting.

I will finish off with one of the best pieces of advice I ever got: don’t go into debt over gear. It’s a fast track to ticking the “financial hardship” box and quitting for good. At the time of writing, I declined a very attractive deal on a piece of gear that I really want but really can’t afford.

What are your thoughts on quitting? Are you a quitter or do you stay until the last moment? Let us know in the comments below!

Behind the scenes by Brandon Sandén.

The Google Pixel 7A smartphone offers a lot of features and capabilities at a reasonable price, making it a nice choice for a wide range of users. This great video review takes a look at the phone’s photo and video capabilities and the sort of performance and image quality you can expect from it in practice. 

Coming to you from Julia Trotti, this awesome video review takes a look at the Google Pixel 7A smartphone. At $499, the Pixel 7A is rather affordable by modern smartphone standards, but it still comes with a nice range of features and photo and video capabilities, including:

• 6.1-inch FHD screen with up to 90 Hz refresh rate
• 64-megapixel wide camera
• 13-megapixel ultrawide camera
• 13-megapixel front camera
• Super Res Zoom up to 8x
• Real Tone
• 24-hour battery life
• 72-hour battery life with Extreme Battery Save mode
• Wireless charging
• Google Tensor G2 processor
• 8 GB RAM
• Pixel Call Assist for help placing calls, avoiding spam, waiting on hold, and filtering background noise 
• Face and fingerprint unlock
• Titan M2 chip for increased security
• Live Translate with support for 48 languages
• Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser, and Night Sight

All in all, the Pixel 7A looks like a very nice choice for photographers and filmmakers looking for a reasonably priced smartphone. Check out the video above for BTrotti’s full thoughts on the phone.  

Gauri Gill started out in her 20s, a Delhi-based photojournalist covering stories right across India. She’d drop in, drop back out, then later find herself wondering what had happened to all the people she had photographed. “In India, as across the world,” says Gill, “the rural is being written out. The city – and AI is an extreme extension of the city – leads us to think we can do everything through machines. But the actual people on the ground – the farmers, the peasants, the Adivasis [the term given to India’s indigenous peoples], the forest-dwellers, who have lived so beautifully and so sustainably on the earth and from whom we should be learning – are being crushed.”

In 1999, Gill saw a young girl being beaten by her teacher at a school near Jodhpur and decided this was something she needed to spend longer on. She pitched a story on village schools. When no commission came, Gill quit her job at a magazine and made her way back to the farthest reaches of Rajasthan, to the Thar desert. She wanted to record what life there was like, especially for women and girls. She could not look away.

This marked the beginning of a photographic archive, now in its third decade, that Gill calls Notes from the Desert. For a long time, she showed the photographs only to the people in them, now her friends. She worried about “people with power going in and representing people without power”. But one day, she spoke to a great activist who had long worked in these areas. He said: “Don’t you think rich people have hearts?” Taking her work only to the relevant villages, he added, could not be as impactful as taking it farther afield, to Delhi and Mumbai, say. After all, the villagers already knew their stories.

In 2020, again, Gill could not look away when farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and beyond – fearing the government’s agricultural reforms would further imperil their already fragile livelihoods by giving greater power to global corporations – travelled in convoys of tractors and trucks to protest in Delhi. They drove up to the police barricades on the roads leading into the capital and made camp. Did Gill grab her camera?

Actually, Gill’s archive does not document the year-long protest that followed. There were activists living there throughout, she says, who were doing an amazing job of getting the message out. Instead, she first visited in January, two months in, merely to show her support. It was freezing cold. There were neither proper toilets nor running water. Why is it, she wondered, that the voices of the people who are actually growing our food are not heard? So Gill chose to document the village the farmers built, especially the way they adapted their farm vehicles to make them habitable during extreme weather.

This series is called The Village on the Highway and it is one of the many pictorial treasures heralding the completion of the new Photography Centre at the V&A in London, which opens to the public on 25 May. Spread across seven galleries, the centre chronicles photography from its very beginnings to the present day, aiming to “explore its extensive impact on our lives”.

Gill works with a big film camera. It is a slow, almost painterly medium that lends itself to capturing margins and details, things quiet and overlooked. The farmers had brought flags, produce, patience and the sort of resolve that comes from a lifetime of working fields. They had also brought their own knowledge systems and skills – including the make-do ethos called jugaad. They stretched out tarpaulin and trussed it up to metal, taped mesh to door frames and erected tents and bamboo scaffolding, to carve out spaces to eat and rest in. For all their endeavours, though, the people are absent from these shots, which just feature what Gill calls these “speaking structures”.

The villagers also set up kitchens boasting brick-cased fires and cooking pots the size of bathtubs, from which they fed not just each other but also the people – some of the city’s poorest – already living where they now camped. Gill photographed cauliflower plants one farmer had planted in the roadside dirt. “We will grow produce right here and show them!” he told her. Twelve months later, as the laws were finally repealed and the farmers started packing up to go home, Gill watched a local woman cry. She had come to the site to be fed every day.

“In the face of extreme hard-heartedness, the farmers were saying, ‘Here we will give you food. We will be generous.’ That spirit and quality is what moved me. When you were there with them, you didn’t feel like leaving. Even at the very low points, people would say, ‘It’s OK, we will win, we will just keep sitting here.’ It was so optimistic.” Many of the farmers were elderly men, who as Gill puts it, “brought their bodies” to the year-long struggle. Some estimates put the number of those who died as a result at 750. “One man said to me, ‘If you want to see Guru Nanak [the 15th-century founder of Sikhism] come and see the old men over here.’ It would break my heart because they were in the last stages of sitting there, giving themselves, fighting not just for themselves but for all of us. Their survival is key to all of us.”

Scroll through The Village on the Highway section of Gill’s archive and it’s the details that capture the eye: Buddhist prayer flags, red Communist flags, the Indian national flag, Sikh religious flags, farmers’ association flags. Then there are the garlands of plastic flowers, the rusting corrugated iron sheets jostling with unhitched trailers and large water tanks. Straw is stuffed beneath tarpaulin-covered roofs, for extra insulation against cold air and monsoon rains. Shoes, flicked off tired feet, mark the entrance to a living space decorated with muddy rugs. Gill calls the site “an architecture of resistance and tremendous beauty, because you see how it comes from urgent necessity”.

This combination of resistance and beauty can be found in another ongoing series, Traces. Begun in 1999, it records the graves created in the Thar desert by Muslims, Hindus, nomadic Jogis and Bishnoi alike. To an outsider, these slight mounds, subtly signalled by a grouping of stones or crockery shards, might appear merely incidental to the rocky terrain. But the people who live there know – and, crucially, Gill knows the people.

When Gill talks about her projects, she says “we”. So does she work with a big team? “No,” she replies. “I’m alone, pretty much.” In Delhi, she has a studio manager to help with admin, but when she’s working elsewhere, it’s just her and her camera and the people she’s visiting. She speaks with them in Hindi, Punjabi, English and Hindustani (the lingua franca that mixes Urdu and Hindi). Mostly, though she tries to get out of the way and listen.

People might ask her to go to the police station with them when they’re in trouble, or accompany them to the hospital if doctors aren’t taking them seriously. As an English-speaker, says the photographer, she has a power people can tap into. “The world of English,” she says, “is the world that is seen to be the centre, the norm. But there are many, many, many other worlds.”

In Acts of Appearance, begun in 2015, Gill collaborated with papier-mache artists in a village in Maharashtra. For the annual Bohada festival, sculptors from the Adivasi communities of the Kokna and Warli tribes create extraordinary lacquered masks depicting the deities, which the villagers wear in re-enactments of myths that last several nights. Struck by how removed such a visual universe was from the day-to-day challenges the people face, she commissioned the artists to make masks of the animals and objects they treasured most, then photographed everyone wearing them.

The result is extraordinary, like a people’s mythology. Animals are a natural and symbiotic part of the Adivasi universe. We see two women, one a clock face, the other a lizard, peering out of a bashed white transit van. Elsewhere, three people with the heads of a camel, a donkey and a goat sit cross-legged at a carrom board. A hare-headed girl crouches in a cotton tent. Although no glimpse is given of the people behind the masks, Gill feels very much in their debt. “You see the name Gauri Gill on these works,” says the photographer, “but so many other people make them possible.”

Gill loves how the mask series has taken on a life of its own. She recently stood in the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, during a major retrospective of her work, marvelling at the conviction with which some visitors, not knowing who she was, were explaining her photographs to others. With a laugh, she says: “They really seemed to own the work!”

• The V&A Photography Centre opens on 25 May

Skye Blue is a professional wrestler who before donning sequins and spandex was more concerned with shutter speeds and sharpness when she was a wildlife photographer.

Skye Blue from the All Elite Wrestling (AEW) promotion revealed on the AEW Unrestricted podcast last week that before entering the sports entertainment business she had a passion for capturing animals and nature.

The podcast host brought it up saying: “I didn’t know this about you, you used to be a wildlife photographer?”

“Yeah, so I used to be like a super shy kid,” Skye Blue replies. “And I like hated social things like men terrified me. I would hide behind my mom, and I went to a private school because I was so scared of crowds, which is super crazy to think now that I do this.”

Blue, whose real name is Skye Dolecki, went on to explain how she got into photography.

“I used to photograph like; we’d go to the zoo, we would go to wildlife preserves,” she explains.

“So I used to work at a wildlife preserve and they kind of got me into it. I brought my camera one day. I was just taking pictures of all the animals that we work with and I was like, ‘Oh, this is fun.’ And then I just kind of did it from there.”

Blue lost interest in photography once she became an active wrestler but says it still runs in her family.

“And then it just I just kind of fell off it once I started wrestling,” she says. “But then mom picked it up, and now mom brings a camera to all my wrestling shows that she’s able to go to. The first training place I went to, she did the photography for them.”

23-year-old Blue, who is known for her high-flying antics, is not the only athlete to dabble in both sports and photography. Baseball pitcher Randy Johnson has thrown himself back into photography after retiring from the mound.

Before he was a ten-time All-Star, Johnson studied photojournalism at the University of Southern California from 1983 to 85.

“My career as a Major League baseball pitcher has been well documented, but what is not as well known is my passion for photography,” Johnson writes on his website.

“Baseball became my occupation for two decades but my love of photography never left. Following my 2010 retirement, I was able to focus my attention back to this passion.”

Image credits: Feature photo courtesy of All Elite Wrestling.

Bird photography is a challenging discipline to master and it’s even more difficult when you are in locations that have erratic and invasive weather. In this video, Brent Hall goes to Scotland to shoot birds on cliffs and in rivers, with Scottish weather behaving exactly as it always does: poorly.

Bird photography is popular in Scotland, particularly along its rugged coastlines and in the Highlands. There are a wealth of interesting species — which isn’t the case everywhere in the U.K., I can promise you that! — including the elusive Scottish Crossbill. Hall captures a variety on his travels for this video, but the most challenging part is the weather.

If you’ve never been to Scotland, you might not realize just how far north it is. As a result, it is often cold and it gets hammered with rain for a good portion of the year. The weather is so unpredictable, in fact, that you need to not only be patient, but on guard. It is, however, a double-edged sword; while it can make shooting conditions insufferable, it had add atmospheric mist and fog, as well as dramatic lighting. It seems as if Hall gets a decently sized portion of both!

If you’re a bird photographer, the U.K. doesn’t have a large library of locations to go, with the coasts typically offering the best selections, but this video shows just how good Scotland can be if you can stomach the conditions!

Muskogee, OK

(74401)

Today

Sunny to partly cloudy. High around 80F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low 58F. Winds light and variable.

Updated: May 22, 2023 @ 9:15 am

Catrin was returning from a ski trip in the French Alps, when the coach’s brakes failed and the crash happened. 96% of her body suffered third degree burns leaving her with a 1 in a 1000 chance for survival. Following three months in coma, 200 surgical procedures and 4 years of rehab, Catrin defied destiny.
To the prying eyes that meet her every time she steps out of the house, she looks back at them with tenderness and empathy.
‘If my scars make you feel better about yours then I am happy for you. I understand you. And that’s what I expect from you as well. Empathy, not sympathy. My scars make me special… unique… differently beautiful. They are life’s brush strokes… and I am in love with this painting.

Photography can be an empowering tool used to tell stories of those whose voices might struggle to be heard. An image can communicate a lot without words, as is the case with Sujata Setia’s project called Changing the Conversation. The series features people with physical differences as a way to honor their resilience in the face of obstacles.

The intimate portraits were inspired by a simple question from Setia’s child. “My 8-year-old daughter returned from school one day and asked me if she was beautiful,” she tells My Modern Met. “As a girl, who grew up in a patriarchal society back in a small town in India, I have battled all my life with the constructs of beautiful or ugly, boy or girl, normal or abnormal, rich or poor, pink or blue.

“For me, this world has always been divided into binaries, and I noticed my daughter started to develop a similar worldview. And so, I started this series as an effort to work toward the expansion of humanity. A world without exceptions. A world that moves away from binaries. It is an ongoing series.”

Setia, who works under the name But Natural Photography, specializes in newborn, pregnancy, and family portraits. She sees a lot of families, and that’s where Changing the Conversation began. “My first photoshoot was with Amber, a mum who gave birth to a 13-pound baby and was left with what I call ‘medals of honor’ on her body.” But the project shifted when she met Cartrin, a 96% burn survivor. “I realized that there was a lot more that needs to be spoken about. I thought I would build awareness around scars, visible and invisible both. That one conversation with Catrin, changed the course of this project entirely.”

Unfortunate things can happen to us, but they aren’t all of what makes us who we are. And in these dark situations, light can still find its way in. “I want these images to show that nothing is either this or that,” Setia explains. “That the world isn’t just good or bad. Pretty or ugly. Man or woman. The world exists beyond these binaries.”

Scroll down to see the powerful images and read the accompanying captions.

Photographer Sujata Setia has created an ongoing series titled Changing the Conversation.

On 14 February 1990, flight IA605 flying from Bombay to Bangalore, crashed killing 92 of 146 people on board; three of whom were Tulsi’s mother, father, and 5-year-old brother.
“I remember fighting with my brother about who will get to sit on the window seat and the next thing I hear was my grandma’s voice.
‘Tulsi your mum, dad, and Kamlesh are no more.’
Next few weeks were a blur and then came the time to meet the new me.
Not the 10-year-old boisterous Me… but the orphan, burn survivor Me.
From there on the word ‘ugly’ became my identity.
‘Who will marry her? Who will give her a job? She is so ugly!’—that sort of became my narrative at 10. Growing up, job rejection letters stated my face wasn’t fit for the job.
Life forced me to sign on for social benefits. An incident that day changed my life. I was waiting for a bus to goto the job center and a car pulled up right next to me. Next, I heard 4 men shouting at me, ‘You are so ugly. You should have died.’
I came very close to giving up that day. I came very close to taking my life.
But instead I chose to NOT LET MYSELF DOWN.
I got onto the bus and reached the job center to sign up. The lady there was just the most compassionate person ever. She made me realize that there is goodness in this world.
That was a turning point in my life. That’s the day I realized that maybe I’m not the most beautiful person in the world but I am certainly not ugly.
I chose to face my trauma and I healed myself.
I am now a reiki master. A spiritual coach. I help people with generational trauma and abuse so they are able to break that cycle. I am a model/ influencer/ speaker… things that my 10-year-old self wouldn’t imagine doing. Because she was told she was ugly.”
“Will you be able to hold that little 10-year-old You in your arms now and tell her with conviction that you will protect her?” I asked Tulsi.
“OF COURSE YES!! I will protect her and together we will and are living our best life.”

“I have wondered what it would be like to have more than one child, if I need to hold them both tight at the same time,” James said as he laughed casually.
9 years ago, James lost his arm and leg in an accident.
Ashley is a congenital amputee. Which means that she was born with the lower part of her right arm missing.
“I didn’t want to have children because I thought I wouldn’t be able to hold her. How will I support her head while feeding? How will I tie her shoe laces? Or change her clothes… but it all worked itself out. Elara realises that mummy and daddy just have to do things differently. So she works with us on solutions.”
“You know how it is… with being limb different… you just have to be persistent.”
Ashley is a successful model and an advocate for families that have a limb different member. Since his accident, James has worked with Japanese gaming giant Konami to personally design and develop his own advanced bionic arm—earning himself the nickname Metal Gear Man. Since then, he’s become a speaker, BBC presenter, and model.
They have the most beautiful 2-year-old daughter Elara, who truly is a ray of sunshine.

When I met Hannah for this shoot, I had to give no instructions. She asked me simply what my purpose was and I said “A world without exceptions.”She then went and sat at the spot against the backdrop and looked straight at the camera and her eyes; her soul spoke back to me. This is her story.
“Hi. I am Hannah. I am 18. I was born with a rare genetic condition called Hay-Wells Syndrome. There are only about 30 other people like me in this world. My condition has left my hair, teeth, and skin undeveloped.
It all started in college… the bullying. That’s when we become self-conscious and start noticing the differences. It was too much, just too much to bear. I developed an eating disorder as a result. I am still battling with it.
I remember retaliating if they bullied me. I knew deep down inside that it wasn’t my fault but I couldn’t stop myself. That is what the bullies wanted. They wanted power over me. They wanted to dim my light.
But instead I decided to dim theirs. I started to ignore them and their jokes. I have forgiven them because everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves. Our younger self does not represent us as an adult.
If people stare at me now… which they do… all the time… then I just smile at them. I encourage people to ask me questions about my condition because I want to increase awareness about disabilities. That is why I became a model; so I could represent my tribe.
I want this world to become a collective union, where we can all embrace each others’ uniqueness. And until that doesn’t happen; I promise to never judge you, laugh at you, ridicule you or make you feel unworthy… even if you choose to not do the same for me.
Because I am Me. I am kind, strong, compassionate and filled with an inner glow. Because I am more than just a ‘rare genetic condition.’”

“‘101 Dalmatians. Cookie dough. Spotty Face,’ those were the names my classmates secretly kept for me.
Growing up, I hated myself.
I hated everyone around me.
No one looked like me… I didn’t look like them.
I thought I was ugly… horrible.
Those feelings took me to a very dark place. My relationships suffered… with people I loved the most…
Until 3 years ago.
My children were the turning point for me.
I remember that day so vividly. We were going on a family holiday and I was picking clothes that would help me cover myself. I didn’t want to be seen…
…and I just asked my self this one question: “What kind of a role model am I to my children, if I can’t embrace who I am?”
I don’t want them to worry to fit in. I want them to be comfortable with who they are.
And so that day, I chose to be ME!
Hi my name is Cheryl.
I was born with congenital Melanocytic nevus (CMN).
These are my scars.
This is me. I love me. I embrace me. I wear me with respect, confidence and endless joy, for I… AM A CELEBRATION!”

The series features people with disabilities and burn survivors as a way to honor their resilience in the face of obstacles.

“Aged two and a half years young I was burned with boiling water whilst playing a game of ‘Hide n Seek’ with my sister. I was hiding behind the bathroom door and accidentally fell backwards as my sister pushed the door open. I was rushed to the local hospital where we were told I wouldn’t survive. I was quickly transferred to another hospital and put on life support with no hope of survival, but weeks later I pulled through.
Growing up, I was taught to embrace my body and was often told I was beautiful, but as my 20s approached I began to hate my body.
One day whilst walking across a park with my mum, I was approached by a lady that told her I could be a runway model. My mother and I went to the agency later that day and whilst there I was told to fill out some forms. On the forms it asked whether I had any scars. I showed the form to my mother and was quite upset. She told me that it was okay and that I needed to be honest on the form.
When the lady came to take the form, she read it and quickly ushered me and my mother out of the agency. She told me that I could perhaps be a hand model but couldn’t possibly be a runway model with scars.
I was very upset by this and my world was turned upside down, and went on to suffer with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.
Six years ago, I walked London Fashion Week—twice—and this September I did it yet again.
Through my campaigning, standing outside London Fashion Week protesting with groups of ladies, I have now shown that anything is possible and everyone should be included in society.
I’m now in the process of setting up @lovedisfiguretalent agency so that we can see everything Diverse and Equal.
I am a Burn Survivor Thriving, Campaigner for people with Visible/Hidden Difference & Disabilities. I also hold two accolades: Point of Light Award & Boots Wellness Warrior, Women of the Year Award.” – Sylvia

“Hi, my name is Hattie. I was born with a congenital cataract and congenital glaucoma. This meant I required multiple operations as a baby leaving me with an enlarged black eye. Over the last few years this eye began to cause me pain and the consultant recommended I had it removed and replaced with a prosthetic, or the eye was at risk of rupturing and the pain would not ease. I have spent the majority of my life with a visible difference. I also developed psoriasis a few years ago, with red, sore patches of skin and nail changes. Some of these conditions result in stares and questions from strangers. I always try to keep an open mind to others’ approaches and feel I can now use it as an opportunity to educate and raise awareness. Over time I have grown in confidence, embracing my image and accepting its uniqueness, determined that my self-worth will not be defined by my outward appearance. I hope for a world where individuality is celebrated and normalized and desire to be part of that movement.”

Accompanying the powerful images are captions, often featuring the voice of the subject.

“Hi. My name is Erika. I have Neurofibromatosis type 2, (NF2), a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on nerves, mainly in the brain and spine.
NF2 takes and continues taking, and while it does, we are left with physical losses like loss of vision, hearing and facial function, as well as less tangible ones like the loss of communicating with those we love, lost connections, relationships, and opportunities.
Many people don’t talk about the importance of grieving these losses, just as one would grieve the loss of a loved one.
Processing grief is tiring and grueling but ultimately, it renews our strength. As we are thrown into yet another cycle of grief and loss, amidst surgeries, radiation, and drug trials, we find slivers of hope.
So, we keep going, adapting, evolving, and navigating the world we were not quite prepared for.
We celebrate life and advocate for ourselves and others. And though we continue to face the mental, physical, and emotional challenges, we don’t do it alone.
We find and cherish our support systems—those who never left, but instead learned new ways to connect and communicate, held us up and never questioned our strength or our beauty, even if we might have done so, ourselves.”

Raiche was 18 months old when she was burnt in a house fire. Being a Black-British, female, burn survivor has come with its multiple narratives for Raiche. It is a story of marginalisation at multiple levels. A story of perceptions. “The way you look matters a lot in Black culture, so that was a long journey of acceptance for me… understanding, where I actually stand.
I felt like an outsider, but judgement was quick to come by from others as well. ‘Oh you don’t talk Black, you don’t act black,’ I was often reminded.”
Raiche and Catrin came together for this shoot so we could explore the concept of finding oneness in our differences. The role of finding our community, our tribe in helping us navigate the parody of life…to be… to feel… normal.
Together these two amazing women have and are continuing to help redefine “beauty” and normalize facial differences in this world.
I asked them what they feel about being called an “inspiration” every so often?
“Ya! Im living my best life. I wonder sometimes when people walk up to me and say I inspire them. While I am just living my life… I somehow inspire. I guess it’s because scars have a beautiful way of telling a story… a shared story of many commons.”

“I was told, my child won’t be born alive. At my 20 weeks pregnancy scan, she was diagnosed with a cystic hygroma—a fluid-filled sac that results from a blockage in the lymphatic system.
Doctors feared that the large cysts compressing her airways would potentially lead to fatal breathing problems at birth, and we were given the devastating news that Eden wouldn’t make it past the first day. But at 12:01 p.m. on August 9, 2016, miracle baby Eden defied all the odds and was delivered by C-section in a room full of doctors, pediatric surgeons and nurses. She was born with a lymphatic malformation in the form of a mass on her face and neck.
Five years and nearly 20 surgeries later, Eden has kept surprising doctors and defying the odds to become a perfect, happy, and beautiful little girl.
Since Eden was born, I have become her advocate in a bid to help kick the stigma of her visible difference and disability.
I won’t deny that unfortunately Eden has been subject to many nasty comments from trolls online about the way she looks.
But none of that will stop me from being my daughter’s voice, by standing up for Eden and everyone with a visible difference.” – Chelsea. Mother of Eden Sue (The girl who is “differently special”)

“I have a condition called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA Type 2.) I was diagnosed when I was 18 months old. Its a muscle wasting condition. So as I get older, I get weaker. So when I was around 15 years old, I went on a ventilator, full-time.
A lot of people think that it really gets me down. It did in the beginning but now I just get on with life. I have goals that I want to achieve!!
My 24-hour ventilator has not stopped me from becoming a model and educating people about disabilities. I just feel people need to understand that we are no different from you and so we should be treated the same way as you. We just need extra support.
Don’t be scared of using the word ‘disabled.’ Say ‘disabled.’ It is fine.
I try to educate people about disabilities through humor and through trends on Instagram and TikTok. Many of those posts do well. But I also get a lot of negative comments.
It gets a bit much sometimes. A lot of them are borderline death threats.
‘I am going to unplug your machine.’
‘I am going to push you down the stairs.’
But I get on with what I need to do. I express who I am… my body confidence… through the pictures I post with other people on social media. So that they feel confident in their bodies as well.
I just want to say: Disabled people do have fulfilling happy lives. So please don’t think of us as inspirations because we are happily getting on with our lives.”

September 2013, Sassy lost her sight to a deteriorating eye condition called Uveitis Iritis. The vision loss started at 14 and she lost major chunks of it by the time she was 16. Eight years ago, she went in for an eye operation with the knowledge that the results could go either way. Her eye had had so many operations on it earlier that it had become too weak and damaged and there was a high chance that it could not withstand another.
Yet, the eternal optimist—Sassy, went into the surgery with a positive mindset. Unfortunately, however, she came out of the surgery, with blood over her eye… which meant that no light could get in.
Once the blood subsided… Sassy could see light or what you can call “light perception.” She can tell day from night. But that is all!
When we went out for her photo session, I noticed Sassy looking toward the sky… Her beautiful eyes were chasing the light…
The next five years were a rollercoaster of emotions for Sassy.
“I have been diagnosed with depression. I have taken it out on people I care about the most. I get angry and frustrated. And there are days I have truly wished that I could turn back the clock and never have the operation. I want people reading this to know that no matter what, you are not alone and that you will come out on the other side. Because here I am… telling you this story… BECAUSE I GOT PAST IT!!” she says.
“For years I was tethering on the edge between two worlds. The sighted world and the blind world.
As my world became darker. More shadow than light… I was left behind.
I was still me, I wasn’t different, but to others I was. I had changed.
With my future distorting before my very own eyes, I didn’t know which path to take. But with each step, it became a triumph, a celebration, and a new milestone reached.
I face misconceptions, prejudice, and discrimination. But I also face love, support, compassion and inclusion.
I see the beauty everywhere I go. I hear the laughter and I feel the joy.
Now I stand out from the crowd and I shine.
I carry the weight of who I am with pride. Everything I want to be and everything I can be.” – Poem by @sassywyattofficial (The girl who sees light.)

Sujata Setia: Website | Instagram | Facebook

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Sujata Setia.

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