For many women diagnosed with breast cancer, treatment becomes the immediate focus. But what happens when the treatments end?
That question is at the heart of Womanity Portrait Foundation, a San Diego nonprofit founded by photographer Galina Semenova to support breast cancer survivors through photography, art, community, and immersive wellness retreats.
Photo Credit: Galina Semenova, Womanity Portrait Foundation
A portrait photographer by trade, Semenova had been photographing women professionally since 2018.
“I wanted to use photography to show women that they are absolutely beautiful,” she says. “They can look at themselves from my eyes because what I see is just beauty.”
Her work took on a different meaning when a close friend was diagnosed with breast cancer who underwent chemotherapy and reconstruction, lost her hair and one breast, and struggled with how she saw her body. Semenova suggested a photography session. Her friend's daughter did the makeup, and together they created a portrait session that would ultimately inspire a much larger mission.
“What came out on the other side was very empowering,” Semenova recalls. “Here in Western society, those are all aspects of being a woman: you have beautiful hair, you have beautiful breasts,” she says. “And also, when women go through chemo, it puts them in menopause, so they can't have children anymore. It's like you can't bear children, your breasts are full of scars, and your hair, your brows just disappear.”
However, the physical changes are only part of the story. Semenova says one of the biggest gaps she sees in breast cancer care is what happens after active treatment.
“Unfortunately, what's happening is when women go through the treatments, it is just the survivorship and the treatments, treatments, treatments, treatments,” she says. “But then when all this is over, they're kind of left in this space of grief, insecurities; they don't like how they look.”
There can also be fear that the cancer will return, changes in relationships, brain fog, and the experience of inhabiting a body that feels unfamiliar.
“The position kind of, even in the medical world, is ‘you're healed, you're good to go,’ but it's not that at all,” Semenova says. “I think that's where the healing actually starts.”
Photo Credit: Galina Semenova, Womanity Portrait Foundation
That belief became the foundation for Womanity. What began with free photography sessions has grown into three core programs: individual photography sessions, self-portraiture workshops, and retreats for breast cancer survivors.
Semenova developed the self-portraiture workshops after collaborating with the Living Beauty Cancer Foundation in Los Angeles, a nonprofit serving women with cancer. The organization invited her to contribute to one of its art-focused retreats, where she taught participants how to use self-portraiture as a creative practice. Rather than simply being photographed, participants become part of the creative process by using art as a way to explore identity, self-perception, and healing.
“It just gave amazing results,” she says. For Semenova, her work sits at the intersection of photography and survivorship support, using creative experiences to help women process what can be difficult to articulate.
“Even family members don't really understand what these women go through, because a majority of this experience is internal,” she says.
Photo Credit: Galina Semenova, Womanity Portrait Foundation
Womanity's retreat program brings those ideas together in an immersive setting. Last year's retreat included 15 women, and another 15-person retreat is planned for this October in Julian, CA. The experience incorporates multiple modalities, including art, meditation, makeup and skincare education, to create space for the emotional and social dimensions of survivorship, and to connect women who understand those experiences firsthand.
“That's where we step in,” Semenova says, “to help with processing emotions, how to be with it, and bringing the community together through art and healing.”
Each Womanity retreat is application-based. A five-member board reviews each application to determine whether the program is an appropriate fit for the applicant's needs.
“We have certain questions [on the application] to understand if we can offer what this woman needs at the moment in this stage of her life,” Semenova explains.
That distinction is important as Womanity isn't positioned as a replacement for medical or mental health care, and the organization recognizes when an applicant needs a level of physical or psychological support beyond what its facilitators are qualified to provide.
Photo Credit: Galina Semenova, Womanity Portrait Foundation
As Womanity develops, Semenova hopes to offer additional workshops and retreats throughout the year. However, the organization needs more resources to expand, including corporate partners and contributions from other philanthropists to help Womanity become financially sustainable and provide further support to these survivors in need.
“Building a self-sustainable business—that's my priority right now,” she says.
The need for support extends beyond funding. Womanity is actively seeking board members to help grow the organization and bring in additional expertise as its programming expands.
“There is a lot of interest in this, and it's really such a common issue that probably each person knows somebody who has breast cancer,” she says.
Through portraits and storytelling, she hopes to make some of that invisible, transformative experience visible to partners, children, friends, coworkers and the broader community. She hopes to eventually take Womanity's work to other states and countries, documenting how women experience breast cancer in different parts of the world.
“Here in San Diego, we have one of the best medical providers and research,” she says. “Other countries don't have that, so they don't have so much support that women have here.”
For Womanity, the portrait is just the beginning. The larger work is about what happens after the picture is taken: creating community, processing a changed identity, and finding a way forward in a body and life that may look very different than they did before cancer.
“I want to use art to spread the message and tell the stories of these women,” Semenova says. “There are so many women who went through this, or are going through this, and here are their stories to inspire and to create this feeling that they don't have to be alone.”
And, Semenova believes, that's a chapter of survivorship worth talking about.
To apply for Womanity Portrait Foundation’s upcoming retreat, inquire about board positions, or support their mission, visit womanityportrait.org.
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