On June 24, 2018, Renata Cardenas, an author and beauty entrepreneur known by her lifestyle brand, Renata Del Carmen, hosted a photo shoot for Black Women in Brooklyn Bridge Park for her BOLD BLACK BEAUTIFUL project. Her goal was to create beautiful images of Black Women that would represent standards of beauty as stock photography on the internet. On her Eventbrite post Renata wrote, “Out of curiousity I googled, “Beautiful Woman.” I simply wanted to know what the cyber world at large considered beautiful. While I can totally apprecitae a good algorithm, I was certain that they missed the mark that day. I didn’t see any women that looked like me. Not even Beyonce.”
The I AM WOMAN project is born from a similar space. LaShawnda Jones (author/publisher for Spirit Harvest and photographer for SH Images) was tired of the negative images of Black Women in the media. She was exhausted from witnessing the abuse of Black Women perpetrated throughout society because they are rarely seen as worthy of respect and decent treatment. She wants to combat these situations with images and words of Black Women representing themselves by sharing their own experiences of womanhood in their own words.
Renata’s inspiration and goals for BOLD BLACK BEAUTIFUL are very similar to the I AM WOMAN project. Seeing a great opportunity to connect and possibly build towards a partnership, LaShawnda reached out to Renata and asked if she could do back-up photography during the BOLD BLACK BEAUTIFUL photo shoot and share information about her own project with the BBB participants. Renata graciously said yes and a great day of creative synergy and amazing feminine energy was shared by all present – including the male supporters and photographers.
The lack of recognition, respect and love Black Women receive in the cyber and public spears has spurred an amazing response from Black Women who see themselves and each other as the beautiful beings they are. Cheers to sisterhood, solidarity and the determination to create nurturing spaces in a world that perfers not to see you.
Renata Del Carmen on BOLD BLACK BEAUTIFUL
Renata Del Carmen on being a Life Style R
Image gallery from the BOLD BLACK BEAUTIFUL photo shoot
