Many of us wish we could give up our jobs to go and follow our passion. For a very lucky few, our job is our passion. Romanian photographer Mihaela Noroc quit her job to follow hers in 2013.
Since then, she’s travelled the globe to capture the beauty in diversity around the world for an amazing project titled The Atlas of Beauty.
Over the last three years, Noroc has visited more than 50 countries photographing the women she meets to highlight the planet’s natural beauty in diversity, and it’s an amazing body of work that quickly makes you realise that beauty is all around us and is in everybody.
Noroc speaks proficiently in five languages but still occasionally relies on translators or simple body language to communicate with potential subjects.
This grandmother and granddaughter from Rostov, Russia are passionate about handmade art. Tamara, the grandmother, weaves traditional textiles, while Sonya, the granddaughter, makes astonishing ball-jointed dolls.
Noroc spends hours each day walking around different environments to try to find the perfect faces and stories for each location. In this photo, Jade is from Cape Town, South Africa, where she also has a dream of travelling around the world to make photographs.
Noroc’s work has no age limits and includes both old and young. This is 54 year old Gita, from Örebro, Sweden.
As interesting as the diversity of people is the vast array of different environments around the world in which they are photographed. Sometimes it’s in their home, and sometimes it’s on the street, but they all suit their subject very well and give so much more context.
Through my photography I want to capture that feeling of warmth and serenity which comes from the eyes of a woman and can balance sometimes the negativity we see in the media
Many people from all around the world face discrimination just because they have a certain color, religion, ethnicity or because they are women. I think beauty is diversity and it can teach us to be more tolerant.
My goal is to continue for many years and capture beauty in all countries of the globe, if possible, making this Atlas an inspiration for all women that try to be themselves, natural and authentic
I spent hours poring over Mihaela’s photographs on her Facebook page, and the stories that go along with each of the images describing the lives and circumstances of the people in them are just fascinating.
Noroc is currently looking for funding to help continue the project, and plans to have produced enough work to release a book in 2017 containing around 600 images of women from as many countries around the world as possible.
If you want to help support this project and see more of Noroc’s work, you can do so on her website. You can also keep up with her continual journey through Facebook or Instagram. Images used with permission.
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