Synopsis

Girls being fearless. Girls being silly. Girls being wild, stubborn, and proud. Girls whose faces are smeared with dirt and lit up with joy. So simple and yet so powerful, Strong Is the New Pretty celebrates, through more than 175 memorable photographs, the strength and spirit of girls being 100% themselves.

Real beauty isn’t about being a certain size, acting a certain way, wearing the right clothes, or having your hair done (or even brushed). Real beauty is about being your authentic self and owning it. Kate T. Parker is a professional photographer who finds the real beauty in girls, capturing it for all the world to see in candid and arresting images.

A celebration, a catalog of spirit in words and smiles, an affirmation of the fact that it’s what’s inside you that counts, Strong Is the New Pretty conveys a powerful message for every girl, for every mother and father of a girl, for every coach and mentor and teacher, for everyone in the village that it takes to raise a strong and self-confident person.

Product details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing (1 Mar. 2017-UK)(7 Mar. 2017-USA)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761189130

My take on the book

I am writing this in October 2016 purely because I have just finished reading this book and wanted to get the review done while my emotions were still with me. I wanted to quote the girls and young women featured in this book, however, I would have ended up quoting every single one of them. The girls and young women in these pictures are a true inspiration! I think that Kate T. Parker has done an amazing job with this book. I really hope that there will Ms. Parker will release more publications exploring this avenue.

I requested this book as an ARC from NetGalley as a photographer thinking I would enjoy it for the photographs however it made me think about my daughter and all that she has been through from birth. My daughter was born with a very severe cleft lip and palate. We were told she would never be able to eat without a feeding tube, never be able to speak, her surgery wouldn’t look too good on her lip and that they couldn’t guarantee that her palate would be ‘fully functioning’. The thing about the palate is that it is not just the roof of our mouth but the soft palate, which is further back, stops food coming out of the nose along with helping speech and has other uses also and the hard palate which is at the front of the mouth helps us with speech and eating also. When she was born the midwives tried to take her and have feeding tubes inserted, I told them no that they had to give her a chance. We knew she couldn’t suck as she couldn’t create a seal in her mouth but I had been given special feeding bottles when I was pregnant from a clinic that I had contacted and I wanted to try them first. Took us some time to get the right teats for her but between she and I we worked out the feeding. Her speech was completely unintelligible until she was 5 years old but with an amazing Speech and Language Therapist  we got there and now at the age of 8 years old (she will be 9 when this book is published) I have people telling me how beautifully spoken she is and they are completely shocked when I tell them her story. She is a phenomenal singer also. At the moment we are waiting on a letter telling us the date of her next surgery, a bone graft for her gum, and all she cares is that I make sure that the surgery isn’t before Christmas as she has concerts lined up to sing in. Her lip, if you hadn’t known her from birth or knew she was born with a cleft you would never ever know. Her surgeon has asked me what type of creams and so on I used on her lip to relax it so much, he had thought she would need more surgeries to have it look ‘normal’, and I told him I massaged it many many times a day – he now passes this info on to other parents along with telling them the products I used during the massages.  My girl has other problems and faces them all head on, she is the absolute definition of this book – Strong is the New Pretty!

I’m sure you have already guessed this book gets 5*!

About the Author

You can find Kate on Twitter and her website.

KATE T. PARKER  is a mother, wife, former collegiate soccer player, Ironman, and professional photographer who shoots both fine-art projects and commercial work for clients across North America. Her Strong Is the New Pretty photo series has led to collaborations with brands like Athleta, Kellogg’s, and Oxygen. The project has also inspired Kate to launch a philanthropic arm of Strong Is the New Pretty, partnering with organizations like Girls on the Run and The Bully Project that invests in girls’ health and education. When she’s not photographing, Kate can be found coaching her daughters’ soccer teams. She lives with her family in Atlanta, Georgia.

Commercial Work

Kate’s list of clients include Athleta, Girls on the Run, AT&T, Kroger, Staybridge Suites, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Ivivva, Walgreens, GlaxoSmithKline, Biogen, Kellogg’s, Verizon, NFL, Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Oxygen, Holiday Inn, Cigna, Atlanta International School and Progressive Insurance.

Strong is the New Pretty

“Strong is the New Pretty” started as a personal project for photographer and mother to two young girls, Kate T. Parker.  Kate wanted to showcase her girls as they are…loud, messy, silly, fearless, independent, confident and fierce.  Through her images, she wanted to combat the messages the media sends to women and girls: that beauty is a hairstyle, a certain size or an outfit.  Kate’s goal was to show that true beauty is in being yourself 100%. Confident is beautiful.Messy is pretty.  Loud is great.  Silly is awesome. Strong is the new pretty.The response to Kate’s images has been amazing.  From Bangalore to Boston, Atlanta to Australia, the images have been embraced.  The work has been shared via social media extensively.  It has been featured on CNN, The Today Show, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls at the Party, Zooey Deschanel’s Hello Giggles, Buzzfeed (1 million views), Mashable, Distractify, The Washington Post, A Mighty Girl, Lean In, The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Vanity Fair, Glamour, The Daily Mail, Redbook, The New Zealand Herald, Mind Body Green, Huffington Post, Self Magazine, Pop Sugar, Good Housekeeping, Mic, among others.    “Strong is the New Pretty” will be a book with Workman Publishing to be published in March, 2017.  The book will expand the images from just Kate’s immediate circle to young women around the country.  A diverse group of strong, beautiful and inspiring girls have been shot and will continue to be photographed for the book.  Kate’s goal is to have someone in the book that everyone can relate to in some way.  Someone that they can understand their struggle, someone they see themselves in, someone that inspires them.

Blended

‘Blended’ Photo Series Captures the Unconditional Love Between An Adopted Child And His Family Photographer Kate T. Parker is one proud aunt. Her sister and brother-in-law adopted her 5-month-old nephew, Sam, in February 2014. But Parker knew she’d want to celebrate the newest member of the family in a special way from the beginning. “Throughout their entire adoption process, I knew I wanted to document whatever lucky baby we would welcome into our family.” In a photo series which she calls “Blended,” the Georgia-based photographer captures Sam’s first moments with his family. She explained that the project also documents “the power of love, the agonizing wait (and then elation) of adoption, the welcoming of another life into our clan, and what it means to be a biracial family.” Aside from showing off Sam’s adoption journey, his loving family and squish-worthy cheeks, Parker simply can’t get enough of him. “He’s the happiest, cutest baby on the planet. I feel so lucky to have that little man in my life.”