Haley Brown: First Place, April ’11

“I am frequently exposed to pictures of ridiculously skinny women, happy and healthy with tiny waists and sporting size zero clothing articles with huge smiles on their faces as if being so thin made them the happiest women in the world. Being confronted with these images time and time again has a deteriorating effect on a girl’s self-esteem (or at least my self esteem). Too many girls my age torture themselves to look like the photoshopped women they see in advertisements, television, magazines. By taking self portraits of myself, I feel like I have grown to accept my own beauty. I feel like my pictures symbolize the power I have to push past these expectations and pressures placed on women.”

Haley Brown