Page Size — 8 3/4 x 11 3/8; 180 pages

Text — 3 PMS Colors + Spot Varnish Images

Bindery — Wrap 98 pt. Board. Smyth Sew & Case Bound

PETER FREED, Photographer

A woman whose TED talk on authenticity was watched by over 20 million viewers; a breast cancer survivor who left her career to create bathing suits with integrated prostheses; a raw food expert who saw a need for healthy airport food and did something about it; a woman who dedicates her life to speech therapy for the facially disfigured; a super model who believes Every Mother Counts and fights for worldwide maternal health.

These are just a sampling of the extraordinary women whose essays and portraits are captured in the PRIME book. The search for engaged and passionate women started simply enough with friends and associates, but quickly expanded as many referred another inspirational woman creating a chain of connections that went around the globe. The beauty of this organic selection is that, from start to finish, the women of PRIME are inextricably linked.

My choice to photograph each subject in black and white with no makeup, retouching or jewelry, was not embraced by every subject.  Yet I believe it resulted in images that portray stark and authentic beauty. Each woman’s insights about the aging process are as unique as their images. By design the reader views her portrait alongside her essay and inevitably makes initial visual assumptions that are often altered as each story is revealed.

The essays are filled with the challenges and opportunities life throws us and the choices made in response to those events. These women uniformly refuse to accept conventional definitions about a woman’s age. It is my hope that in the pages of this book we will learn the names, see into the faces, and hear in their own words details of the journey that has shaped them.