Last week I had the great pleasure of photographing Shahida Rashid. Shahida is an Empowerment Coach and Founder of The Butterfly Charity. Her charity helps vulnerable abused women/single mums in rural villages of Bangladesh and gives them tools/business funding to enable them to create an income for themselves. I was personally so moved by some of the stories on the website that I chose to donate part of my shoot fee to support Shahida with all the amazing work she is doing. A Bangladeshi woman herself, this is a cause that is therefore very close to her heart.  As a muslim woman, it was important to Shahida that the photos we produced promoted a modest image of her for her business. It was therefore an important part of the process that before the shoot, we discussed in our consultation how we would work with styling and posing to get the appropriate look for her personal brand.

The shoot took place at Wolfox Chapters in Brighton, which was a joy to photograph at. It’s sumptuous velvet chairs, and dark green walls contrasted with palm print wall paper created just the variety we needed for the shoot. We also shot later in the day when the light was softer to create an even look to the images.

Below are just some of the images we created during the shoot and Shahida also created a very lovely testimonial of her experience that I thought I’d share!