Behind the Scars is a portrait series by British photographer Sophie Mayanne that pairs unretouched photos of people's scars with the stories of how they got them. Burns, cancer surgery, accidents, rare conditions present from birth and self-harm all appear, told largely in the sitters' own words. The project began in 2017, and its quiet aim is to show that scarred bodies belong in the pictures we see every day.
Mayanne trained as a fashion photographer and grew frustrated that magazine casting left out most real bodies. By spring 2018 she had photographed around 300 people, and she has spoken of eventually collecting 1,000 stories in a book. Since October 2017 she has not digitally altered skin or bodies in her work, so every mark you see is real. The series has been featured by Vogue, Elle, Glamour and on British television, and it led to campaigns for brands such as Dove.
Below are 33 portraits from the series, grouped by the story behind each scar. Some accounts mention self-harm and serious illness. Each caption summarizes what the person shared at the time, with a little background on the conditions involved.
More info: Sophie Mayanne's website | Instagram | Behind the Scars archive
How the project began
Mayanne has said the idea grew from meeting a model named Nicholas, who had survived a sword attack, spent months in a coma and had to learn to walk again. It was the first time she had really talked with someone about their scars, and she became curious about what scars mean to the people who carry them.
Her sessions are deliberately relaxed. She plays music, often brings her dog, and spends time talking with each sitter before shooting, so people feel safe enough to show parts of themselves they may have hidden for years. Early on, one of the portraits went viral, and word of mouth has driven the project ever since. In spring 2018 an exhibition was planned at the Norman Rea Gallery in York, curated by Isabella Fernandes, pairing the portraits with soundscapes of the sitters' stories.
Scars from burns and fires
Mercy
Mercy was badly burned at 29 in a fire connected to domestic abuse, and she describes the years since as a hard road toward acceptance. Today she calls her scars her "most precious, and expensive piece of jewellery". She agreed to be photographed in the hope that her openness might help other survivors.
Isabella
Isabella lost her home and belongings in a house fire in the summer of 2015 and spent that summer in a London burns unit. Burn scars keep changing for years as the tissue matures, and hers are still shifting. Even so, she says she has never felt more beautiful.
Isabella, two years on
In a second portrait, taken two years and two days after the fire, Isabella writes more frankly about the bad days. She describes feeling angry, incomplete and haunted by memories that blur into the present. She ends on a note of hope, certain that she will be okay in time.
Isabella, a third portrait
A further portrait labelled Isabella was shared without a written story. Arms raised and gaze steady, it lets the scar on her arm speak for itself. Some images in the series appear with no text at all, leaving viewers to imagine the story behind the mark.
Agnes
Agnes survived a gas explosion in 1997, when she was seven, and has since had 27 reconstructive operations. Unlike many sitters, she says she has always felt at ease with her scars. To her they are beautiful, each one carrying its own story.
Bintu
At just 11 months old, Bintu pulled a cup of boiling tea from a counter, scalding her shoulder, chest and stomach. Hot drinks are one of the most common causes of burns in babies and toddlers. She has no memory of her body without the scar, and while strangers' stares still sting on bad days, her motto is that it is simply a scar.
Iris
When Iris was five months old, a fire broke out beside her cot while she napped, and she lost two fingers. She spent a year recovering in hospital and, she says, 25 years learning to accept her hand after a childhood of hiding it. She credits her mother with raising a fighter, though moving the hand can still hurt.
Scars from cancer treatment
Abi
Abi was 27 and working with survivors of trafficking and abuse in Cape Town when her right arm began to ache at night. A chiropractor dismissed her pain, but the arm later snapped when she jumped back from a barking dog, and scans revealed osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer most common in young people. Her account traces the moment a simple fracture turned into a cancer diagnosis.
Barbara
Barbara was diagnosed in 2014 with angiosarcoma of the breast, a rare cancer of the blood vessel lining. After chemotherapy and three operations, including one that removed her sternum and four ribs and rebuilt her chest with surgical cement, muscle and a skin graft, she came to see her scars as proof of a courage she had not known she had. When the cancer returned she said she felt at peace, and she asked Mayanne to photograph her as art. Barbara died the following year.
Hannah
Hannah learned she had breast cancer in April 2016 and had a lumpectomy a week before turning 27. Her wound healed unusually slowly after infections and a reaction to dissolvable stitches, leaving a thicker scar, plus another under her arm where lymph nodes were checked (the cancer had not spread). She admits she is not fully at ease with the scar yet but appreciates her body for keeping her alive, and celebrates small wins like raising her arm above her head again.
Yasmin
Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2012, Yasmin also had a benign tumor the size of a grapefruit, attached to her liver, nerves and a main leg artery. Removing it took five hours of major surgery. She had feared no one would find her attractive afterwards, but says the experience taught her deep, unconditional love for a body that kept her alive.
Adele
Adele was diagnosed in 2014 with Ewing sarcoma, a rare bone cancer that mostly affects children and young adults. She had almost a year of chemotherapy and bone grafts in her arm using bone taken from her leg. When a graft broke she needed an eight-hour operation, part of ten surgeries in two years, with another still planned when she was photographed.
Silje
At three, Silje was diagnosed with a stage 2 Wilms tumor, the most common kidney cancer in young children. Chemotherapy shrank it before surgeons removed her right kidney, leaving a scar across her stomach and a smaller one where her chemo line went in. Accepting the scar was hardest in her teens, but today she sees it as part of her.
Conditions present from birth
Maya
Maya has epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a rare inherited condition in which skin blisters and tears at the slightest friction. Diagnosed at 18 months, she managed it fairly quietly until a sudden worsening left her in daily pain and with little confidence. She shared her story to raise awareness and research funding, since EB still has no cure, and urged people to look up the charity DEBRA.
Zuzanna
Zuzanna was born without a radius, one of the two forearm bones, in either arm, a condition known as radial hemimelia or radial club hand. She had operations on her hands at one and two, and another at 15 when problems in her left wrist appeared. After years of struggling with other people's reactions, she now feels she no longer needs to hide.
Jamie
Jamie was born at 24 weeks weighing just 1 lb 11 oz (about 770 g). An underdeveloped bowel left tiny holes in the intestine and led to sepsis, and surgeons likened the operation to working on spaghetti. Other marks come from an ileostomy, a feeding tube and a medication line, and instead of fading, the scars grew with Jamie as a reminder to value life.
Lucia
Lucia was born with five holes in her heart and had open-heart surgery at two weeks old, again at two, and a third time at 26 because her heart had become enlarged. She laughs about the irony of a literally big heart and proudly counts herself in the "zipper club" of heart surgery survivors. A scar between her breasts was once hard to accept, but now, she jokes, "Picasso would want to paint me!"
Ellen
Ellen was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), a rare condition in which the top of the thigh bone does not develop properly, leaving one leg shorter. She had several operations as a child, which left scars and stretch marks on her left leg. Only in recent years has she started to feel confident about them.
Jessica
Jessica was born without her right pectoral muscle, which meant breast tissue could not develop on that side, a pattern seen in a condition called Poland syndrome, although she did not name a diagnosis. At 11 surgeons moved a section of back muscle into her chest and placed an implant, which a later surgeon removed when she was 15. Small scars on her right hand come from a childhood tendon operation that did not succeed.
Illness, emergencies and life-saving surgery
Michelle
Michelle has had 15 operations for a brain tumor, a brain cyst, hydrocephalus (a build-up of fluid in the brain) and bowel problems. She did not realize her body looked different until strangers reacted to her in a bikini. At 21 she began embracing her scars and launched the #scarrednotscared campaign so others with chronic illness would feel less alone.
Tracey
Tracey, a mother of two, was told in 2012 she had a cold, then collapsed at home and woke in hospital with two forms of meningitis. She spent a month in an induced coma, months in intensive care, survived a heart attack and had a heart valve replaced with a mechanical one that ticks like a clock. On a neuro ward she relearned how to talk, count, walk and dress, using a walking frame the ward nicknamed "Frank Cooksey".
Nell
On a school trip to the Ardèche in France, Nell developed necrotizing pneumonia and spent four months in intensive care in Montpellier, 90 days of them in a coma. She was kept alive for 66 days on ECMO, a machine that oxygenates the blood outside the body, then survived hospital-acquired MRSA and multiple organ failure. Her scars from ECMO, chest drains, heart surgery and a tracheostomy are, she says, a map of her survival.
Hebe
Hebe had spinal surgery to correct scoliosis, a sideways curve of the spine. She found hospital and recovery humbling and came out with a new respect for what her body can do. Instead of worrying about "problem areas", she now enjoys running, dancing and jumping.
Aimee
Aimee, a dancer, was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2014 and chronic fatigue syndrome in 2015. A tightened IT band (the tissue running down the outer thigh) left her hip so unstable it could slip out of place. An operation on 1 February 2017 lengthened the band, letting her walk and dance without pain, and that hip scar is the one she shows proudly.
Hannah, living with morphea
Another sitter named Hannah describes her skin as a constantly changing map of scars. Alongside biopsy marks, surgery and old self-harm scars, most come from morphea, an autoimmune condition that causes patches of hardened, discoloured skin and can flare unpredictably. Because new marks keep arriving, she is learning to welcome each one as a reminder of battles fought.
Scars from accidents and injuries
Sam
Sam was paralyzed at 14 after playing with a handgun and has used a wheelchair ever since. Refusing to see herself as a victim, she went on to play tennis and to work as a model representing disability in fashion. Her message is that people with limitations are not limited.
Leo
In his twenties, Leo tried to climb a locked park gate as a shortcut, slipped, and the railing spikes pierced his face in two places. A park attendant called an ambulance. He feels the accident spoiled his looks, and he says strangers sometimes assume he was hurt in a fight and judge him for it.
Jessica, a childhood car crash
At eight, riding unbelted in the back of a friend's car, Jessica was thrown through a window when another car hit them and they flipped twice. She was airlifted to hospital, operated on for a ruptured liver and kept in an induced coma for ten days, and doctors warned her mother she might not survive. Twenty-two years later she sees her scar like a tattoo that marks a new chapter, and her story is a strong argument for always wearing a seatbelt.
Blanca
Ten years before her portrait, Blanca and her father were hit by an overtaking car while riding a motorbike in Thailand, and she broke her femur, the body's longest and strongest bone. Later knee surgeries for torn ligaments left eight scars in all, made wider by hypertrophic (raised) scarring. Unkind reactions held her back for years, but she says the accident taught her patience and gratitude.
Megan
At 14, Megan rescued a stray horse called Fly. One morning at feeding time he aimed a kick at another horse, missed, and caught her just below the left temple. The scar has since tethered to her cheekbone, but she would not remove it, because, as she puts it, "I don't think beauty has to be symmetrical."
Self-harm scars and breaking the silence
Several sitters chose to show scars from self-harm, something many people hide for years. Mayanne presents these portraits with the same care as every other story, without judgment.
Chloe
Chloe began self-harming at 13 and describes it as something that can escalate and feel like an addiction. Told by surgeons that plastic surgery could not change the scars' appearance, she chose to work on loving them instead, slowly loosening their link to painful memories. She is determined that other people's opinions will not rewrite her story.
David
David's left arm carries scars from seven years of self-harm. A separate scar on his upper right abdomen marks where surgeons took rib cartilage to rebuild his left ear, a technique often used in ear reconstruction. His brief statement simply names where each scar came from.
Ashleigh
Ashleigh has struggled with self-harm since the age of eight, describing it as a way she learned to cope with very intense emotions. She has spent years wearing long sleeves in every season to keep her arms secret. Accepting the scars, she says, is a big step, because hiding them only feeds feelings of guilt and shame.
If you are struggling with self-harm or thoughts of hurting yourself, you do not have to deal with it alone. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be reached free, day or night, on 116 123; in the US, call or text 988. Talking to a doctor or someone you trust is a good first step.
Why these portraits matter
Scars are among the most common things humans share, yet they are almost absent from advertising and magazines. Seeing them shown plainly and without retouching helps people who carry them feel less alone, and helps everyone else look at a scar and see a person with a story rather than a flaw.
Many sitters in Behind the Scars describe the same arc: years of hiding, a turning point, and gradual acceptance. Not all of them have reached the end of it, and the project is honest about that too. Mayanne has said she hopes the series makes a difference even to one person; judging by how many people have since come forward to be photographed, it already has.
Sources: Photographs and sitters' stories by Sophie Mayanne, Behind the Scars; theprintspace: Featured artist, photographer Sophie Mayanne (April 2018); Canon UK: Behind the Scars; Wikipedia: Epidermolysis bullosa; Samaritans.
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