And Alopecia Advocate
I invited Christala for a photo session after listening to @the_everything_project_ podcast in which I was impressed by what she had to tell. She was brave, positive, and touching. Little did I know that the podcast had been the very first time Christala spoke publicly about the ups and downs of having alopecia, an autoimmune condition that made her lose most of her hair. From then on, she's been on national newspapers and ads.
She’s dealt with alopecia since very young and, although it has caused her a lot of pain and self doubt, she's now embracing it.
There are days where she’ll show her beautiful bald head….
And there are other days where she’ll wear the different wigs she makes for herself.
She’s decided she can be empowered and play with what was a weakness beforehand.
You can find Christala Fletcher here.
From "My photos, Your words." A series where I post my photos alongside captions with the words of the amazing people I get to photograph.
Here are Christala's words.
"On my kind of journey, and accepting my new-found baldness, I found on Facebook a group called The bald movement, which is based in America, but they have sub-groups from many places in the world. All you've got to do to join is to take a picture of yourself bald. And I never had taken a picture of myself bald and smiley. To see myself smiling in a photo where I was bald was the weirdest thing to me and that's when it all started. Once I joined that group, there were tons of women celebrating each other just being bald. Whether it was you just chose to be bald, whether it was through an illness, it didn't matter, it was just women supporting and welcoming each other through their own journey"
“Now that I came out, I feel that being my most authentic self is just so rewarding. You wake feeling like I don't have to put on a wig if I don't want to. I will sometimes because sometimes I want blue hair, but I don't need to feel accepted by anybody. Now that I've come to terms with it, and I'm owning it, the sky is the limit. I wish I've had this feeling sooner, but everyone's journey is completely different. I can feel myself and feel sexy being bald but I can still feel sexy and feminine whenever I want to flick some hair. That's how I am now, I can pick and choose who I'm gonna be in the morning, it's very rewarding, I feel a lot more content and really confident. I'm happy to educate other women, let's keep the conversation going.”
I'm available for commissions and collaborations. Just drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you!