2016年CRI PHOTOS: A 4-Year Mission To Present A New Vision Of Beauty

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

A vegetable vendor¹ in Guatemala with dark straight hair framing her face, deeply etched with lines, an insurance sales team in Cape² Town dressed in dark suits and waiting for a bus, a mother in Tehran, head wrapped in purple, hugging her baby boy - Photographer Mihaela Noroc sees beauty in all of these women and has spent four years shooting portraits and collecting stories on her world travels. You can see that work in her new book "The Atlas³ Of Beauty." Mihaela Noroc joins me now from Berlin. Welcome to the program.

MIHAELA NOROC: Hello, nice to meet you.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Tell me how the project started.

NOROC: Well, the project started almost four years ago. And I just traveled around the world for one year. And in the beginning, it was - I was not expecting to do a worldwide project like it became now. It was just very - something very genuine and sincere. I just was photographing people that I met. And after one year, it became very popular. And now it's just a book that's just so wonderful in my hands.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: How did you finance⁴ this? I mean, it must have been expensive to travel to all the places that you traveled.

NOROC: Well, the first year it was all with my own savings⁵. And I traveled as a backpacker, as low budget as possible. That was not always very easy. And the second year, I managed to make a crowdfunding campaign. And I just kept working on my project.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The book is all these portraits of different women in different situations of different ages of different colors of different sizes all over the world. Tell me the story of one of the encounters, as one of the women - how you met them. And do you just take their picture immediately? Or do you make an appointment to come back and see them?

NOROC: It's very different from one situation to another. Sometimes I spend a few seconds, and sometimes I spend a few hours. If the woman will let me stay with them and photograph them and tell me their story, it will be wonderful. But not everybody has the time for that. So whenever I have the opportunity to spend a few hours, it's amazing.

But I will tell you, for example, the story of the woman that I photographed for the cover of the book. I was in India in Varanasi. It was early morning. And usually, when you go to the Ganga where you're going to see a lot of Hindu pilgrims⁶ making their offerings in the river. So she was one of them. I saw her in the water making the offering.

I just entered very quickly. I asked her for permission with my expression. And she said yes. I made a few pictures, just a few of them. And that was it. I let her continue her offering. And there are lots of magical moments like that in our lifetime. And maybe sometimes we are just not too careful to see them. And we are too preoccupied⁷ with other problems.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes. So I'd like to talk about one of the photographs - Raquel (ph) in Brazil. I lived in Brazil so it resonated. What is her story and what did you learn about her?

NOROC: So I photographed Raquel in North Brazil. And I spent two days with her. I'm actually still friends with her on Facebook because usually I try to keep contact with the women that I photograph. And her story was heartbreaking. When she was four months pregnant⁸, her boyfriend got murdered in one of the favelas from Brazil. And now she's raising her child alone. And she's trying to sell coconuts⁹ because this is the only way she can afford living there.

I was amazed because even though her life story is extremely difficult, she got the power to be very positive. She was smiling a lot. She was taking care of her child with a lot of positive energy.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: She called her child biscuit.

NOROC: Biscoito.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, biscoito.

NOROC: Yeah. She's calling her child Biscoito. Yeah, yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's very sweet. It's hard to travel as a woman and especially as a photographer, I imagine. What were the challenges personally for you?

NOROC: Well, whenever I go into one country, I will always say that I'm a tourist. I have the camera just to make some pictures as a tourist. I never tell them that I'm a photographer because this will surely make the things worse. And it's difficult because I always have to take care not to get robbed. This happened once, you know? But it was just my phone got stolen. That's it.

But once you're with the big camera in your hands as a woman, you're more of a target. So I always try to keep a low profile, go in very crowded areas during day time and not to draw a lot of attention upon me. And those are the women that I'm with. They're always going to help me because I don't know yet to know each other. And we become friends. And they will try their best to keep me secure.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: One of the things that struck me is some of the comments by some of the women. They don't necessarily see themselves as beautiful. They did not see in themselves the thing that you saw in them. Did you find that to be common? I'm thinking in particular of the sisters from Switzerland with the red hair who said they'd been made fun of as children because of the color of their hair. And you were drawn¹⁰ to them.

NOROC: During the project, I did realize that women that I photographed were not confident in their way of being. So whenever I posted their picture on my social media, we got a lot of comments and positive reaction from the people. So the women that I photographed, after that, they realized how beautiful they are. That was extraordinary for them and for me because it gives them confidence.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: How did this project change you?

NOROC: I'm much more confident. I'm much more respectful of what the other women in the world have to go through every day because the life is so difficult in so many parts of the world. And this project was a huge gift in my life. And this is why I'm trying to put it out there in the world for people to understand that the world is extremely beautiful. And we should really appreciate everything that's happening in our life.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Mihaela Noroc, her new book is "The Atlas Of Beauty: Women Of The World In 500 Portraits." Thank you very much.

NOROC: Thank you very much.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIG BLUE BALL'S "FOREST")

1 vendor   

n.卖主；小贩

参考例句：

• She looked at the vendor who cheated her the other day with distaste.她厌恶地望着那个前几天曾经欺骗过她的小贩。
• He must inform the vendor immediately.他必须立即通知卖方。

2 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

3 atlas   

n.地图册，图表集

参考例句：

• He reached down the atlas from the top shelf.他从书架顶层取下地图集。
• The atlas contains forty maps,including three of Great Britain.这本地图集有40幅地图，其中包括3幅英国地图。

4 finance   

n.财务管理，财政，金融，财源，资金

参考例句：

• She is an expert in finance.她是一名财政专家。
• A finance house made a bid to buy up the entire company.一家信贷公司出价买下了整个公司。

5 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

6 pilgrims   

香客，朝圣者( pilgrim的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca 前往麦加的穆斯林朝圣者
• Many pilgrims knelt piously at the shrine. 许多朝圣者心虔意诚地在神殿跪拜。

7 preoccupied   

adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式)

参考例句：

• He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice anything wrong. 他只顾想着心事，没注意到有什么不对。
• The question of going to the Mount Tai preoccupied his mind. 去游泰山的问题盘踞在他心头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 pregnant   

adj.怀孕的，怀胎的

参考例句：

• She is a pregnant woman.她是一名孕妇。
• She is pregnant with her first child.她怀了第一胎。

9 coconuts   

n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 )；椰肉，椰果

参考例句：

• We found a bountiful supply of coconuts on the island. 我们发现岛上有充足的椰子供应。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Coconuts provide "meat", drink, oil, soap and fiber for fishing line. 椰子提供“肉类”，饮料、油脂、肥皂和做钓（鱼）丝的纤维。 来自百科语句

10 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。