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Photographer Transforms Herself Into Disney Princesses To Show Young Black Girls That Representation Matters
Symone Seven has always felt secure as a Black woman, and she wants to help young girls feel the same. Now, her efforts have gone ...
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Symone Seven has always felt secure as a Black woman, and she wants to help young girls feel the same. Now, her efforts have gone viral. The 23-year-old photographer and photo editor living in Atlanta, Georgia, used her photography and editing skills to transform herself into various Disney princesses.
On her website and social media pages, Seven has now completed reimagined photo shoots of all 12 major Disney characters, including Cinderella, Ariel from “The Little Mermaid,” Tiana from “The Princess and the Frog,” Princess Jasmine from “Aladdin,” Maleficent, Rapunzel, Moana and more. She takes the photos of herself, inserts herself into Disney posters using Photoshop and edits to create a gorgeous composite image.
The incredible Rapunzel shot was inspired by a Cardi B shoot for the March 2019 issue of “Harper’s Bazaar.”
Here she is as both the evil Maleficent and the innocent Aurora from “Sleeping Beauty”:
For her turn as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid,” she sported red curls and dreadlocks.
Seven told her Instagram followers that Jasmine (from “Aladdin”) was her favorite Disney princess when she was growing up. She styled this image from a poster for 2019’s live-action “Aladdin.”
Her “Cinderella” portrait was similarly inspired by the 2015 live-action movie adaptation.
“Princess Tiana was the only Disney Princess with a business plan!” Seven wrote on an Instagram post sharing her stunning “The Princess and the Frog” self-portrait.
Seven, who hosts Photoshop classes on her website, has been blown away by the response to her Disney princess self-portraits. “I just want to thank you for being so kind and making this my fairytale,” she wrote on Instagram.
If the reactions from kids are anything to go on, she’s accomplishing her mission and showing young Black girls (and everyone else) why representation matters.
“It’s amazing to see Black women embrace the representation, older women wishing they saw this growing up, minorities in other countries proud to be brown, parents thankful that their daughters can see this, childless women wanting to show their future children, and other races appreciating the aesthetic of it,” Seven told “Good Morning America.” “I’ve cried happy tears every day since I’ve debuted this series.”
What beautiful and inspiring images from an extraordinary artist!
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