“Aroha Mai, Aroha Atu" is a Maori proverb meaning "Love received, love returned”. This is a series of body positive portraits, reminding us to be kind to ourselves and show gratitude for what our body is capable of.
Too often we focus on the way we look and rewiring internal dialogue and conversations with others, takes consistent effort.
There’s a lot to unlearn, for example unknowingly commenting on other people’s appearance. ‘Oh hi, you’re looking really good’ - rolls of the tongue of most people I know.
I’ve noticed how early the pressures to look a certain way starts. You can’t shelter kids from these pressures but we can model positive body talk and behaviours. We can teach them to challenge ideas we have about our body, that we might interpret or hear from media and people around us so that they learn to look for and nurture moments that shape a bigger picture in adulthood.
To start the process of this series I asked my daughter to think of something she enjoys doing and relates to the 5 senses, which gave us a way to connect the body to everyday actions. We then created images of her celebrating these, involving her in every aspect from concept development to the final image.
Aroha Mai, Aroha Atu was created for Women's Work ‘UNDEREXPOSED’.
Women’s Work is a collective of professional female photographers who collaborated to raise awareness of the bias in our industry. Less than 16% of images in advertising are created by women which to me sounds insane. If we can change that in some small way, then one day the media and advertising my kids consume might be more balanced and created by people with more diverse perspectives.