Many women grapple with feelings of having lost beauty or femininity after facing cancer. These are complicated feelings to work through, but one photographer believes he has a small way of helping that process.
Adrian Tomadin is an Argentinian photographer who has been living in Spain for 21 years. Adrian also teaches photography. One of his specialties is boudoir photography. Last year, he launched a project to bring boudoir photography to a very meaningful audience.
"At the beginning of 2020, I embarked on a great adventure, an unprecedented project, portraying women who are going through or have gone through cancer under the rules of this boudoir genre," he shared. Adrian spoke with LittleThings about his project, "36 Women, 36 Stories."
Adrian Tomadin has been passionate about photography for many years. He's been a photographer and also a professor of photography for over two decades. He has many specialties, one of which is boudoir photography.
"Boudoir (from the French 'tocador'), was the room where upper-class women dressed and made up, adjacent to the main bedroom," Adrian explained.
"At present, this is the name given to a photographic modality that reveals the most feminine, elegant, and sensual side of women. This style is very popular in the US and northern Europe, to the point that most women want, at some point in their life, to take pictures of this type.
"It is a genre of photography in which the sensuality of women prevails above all else. They are photos of women for women."
Adrian has worked to spread the boudoir style and teach its finer points to other photographers.
"I have been training international photographers in this area for many years with the firm intention of enhancing, among all, the beauty of the real woman," he shared.
"I don't want to label myself a feminist, but I do want to label myself as a person and professional involved in female empowerment through art."
In early 2020, Adrian embarked on a project with a deeply personal meaning. The project is called "36 Women, 36 Stories." The name is in honor of Adrian's own mother, who died of cancer at 36 years old.
"At the beginning of 2020, I embarked on a great adventure, an unprecedented project, portraying women who are going through or have gone through cancer under the rules of this boudoir genre," he explained.
"These fighting women are undoubtedly an example to follow for society because of their courage and desire to live," he shared.
"One of the factors common to all of them is that they have lost their self-esteem, they look less and less in the mirror, and their complexes are enormous because of the consequences of this terrible disease. They have lost much of their feminine essence."
"My goal with these boudoir photography sessions is to give them back their security and the most beautiful image they carry inside and out," Adrian continued.
"It is an over-the-counter medicine that I understand is critical and absolutely positive for them. I hope it has been as positive and rewarding an experience for all of them as it was for me."
Adrian hopes to continue the project and grow it into something even bigger. He's grateful to these women who shared their stories and themselves in such a deeply vulnerable way. His greatest hope is to give them back just some of what he gets from meeting them and learning about them.
