Strong is the New Pretty: A Celebration of Girls Being Themselves: See the Photos

What happens when you spend four years traveling across the country, working on a photo project where you capture the spirit of 200 girls all over the U.S.?

You get Strong is the New Pretty: A Celebration of Girls Being Themselves, a book created by Atlanta-based photographer Kate Parker, who was inspired by the strength and creativity of her own daughters for the book.

“It was important to me to shoot a diverse range of girls and capture different strengths, because strength and beauty in one girl are not the same as in another girl,” she tells Teen Vogue.

Strong is the New Pretty features powerful images of all kinds of girls, from those playing sports, to those playing musical instruments, to those living with illnesses.

“I want girls to pick up my book, point to a photo and say ‘that’s me,’ and hopefully, they’re encouraged then to stay the way they are,” Parker says. But she also wants girls to recognize strengths that are not their own and that they may never have thought of as strengths.

Like many people, Parker had always only thought of strength as something physical — but shooting the photographs for this book taught her that strength and determination are not just about how much you can lift, or how fast you can run. It applies to all facets of life.

“Strong is The New Pretty” comes out on the eve of International Women’s Day, at a time when the current political climate calls for women to be strong and united, and to make their voices heard in many different ways.