Ellen Keane: ‘Strong. Empowered. Beautiful. Free. All the things I never thought I’d feel about my body.’

From the November issue of IMAGE, six Irish women reflect on what beauty means to them.

What is beauty today? For the last three years, photographer Lee Malone’s passion project has been to challenge perceptions of beauty by capturing women in their most natural, make-up-free state. In the November issue of IMAGE, he photographed six women who opened up to Holly O’Neill about what beauty means to them. Here, Ellen Keane tells her story.

PORTRAITS BY LEE MALONE

Ellen Keane, elite athlete and Paralympic swimmer

“Strong. Empowered. Beautiful. Free.

All the things I never thought I’d feel about my body.

They are words that every woman has the right to feel about herself. They are words I started to believe about myself in recent years.

These were all the things I felt during this shoot. Lee’s photographs help empower women of all shapes and sizes, and I am proud and honoured to be part of this shoot.”

Lee Malone is hoping to publish his Perceptions of Beauty book of portraits next year with money raised going towards various women’s mental health and domestic abuse charities. @lee_malone_photography

This article originally appeared in the November issue of IMAGE Magazine.

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