Wonderful 2016 Holiday Gift Book — Prime: Reflections on Time and Beauty

There are gifts, and then there are well-thought out, meaningful, extra special gifts. One of these gifts would definitely be Peter Freed’s photo-essay book, PRIME: REFLECTIONS ON TIME AND BEAUTY, which features 130 stunning black and white portraits and essays that are a true celebration of women. 2016 is shaping up to be a huge year for women and PRIME marks the occasion perfectly.

Featured are 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 supermodel who believes Every Mother Counts and fights for worldwide maternal health.

The women, ranging in age from 35 to 104—some celebrities, some not—were photographed without makeup and reproduced with no retouching or Photoshop alteration. Each photo is accompanied by a personal essay. “Women are born storytellers gathering information and insights the way a bee gathers pollen, totally immersed and coated in their experiences,” says Peter Freed. The book is a self-described labor of love for photographer Peter Freed, who for over 3 decades has been the “go to” portrait photographer for publications including The New York Times, Forbes, Esquire, Newsweek and Architectural Digest.

Here are just some of the excellent reviews and praise for the book, but I urge you to explore more on the book’s website :

USA TODAY — “Celebrity photog Peter Freed’s in his ‘Prime'”

Daily Mail — “Christy Turlington featured in extraordinary photographer’s book of women in their prime.”

Huffington Post — “The essays are filled with the challenges and opportunities life throws us and the choices made in response to those events.”

Daily Voice — “These women’s stories will make you laugh, bring you to tears, and give you hope.”

With a foreword by the New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown and an introduction by the founder of Philosophy Beauty, Cristina Carlino, PRIME includes never before published essays by Dani Shapiro, Natalie Morales, Christy Turlington Burns, Beatrix Ost, Shiva Rose, Jenny Lawson, Sara Wynter, Alexandra Fuller, Tiffany Shlain, Barbara Lazear Ascher, Patricia Brett, April Gornik, Maddy Corman, Khrystyne Haje, Lee Woodruff, Susan Saint James, Twinka Theibaud, Katherine Center and many others.